Valdés, Juan De

Related Category: Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches: General Biographies

(hwän thā väldās´), c.1500–1540, Spanish reformer, b. Cuenca. Suspected by the Inquisition, he went soon after 1530 to Naples, where he became the center of a circle of men interested in religious reform. Valdés had already published an attack on many ecclesiastical abuses. He never openly abjured Catholicism, but he was a principal influence on many reformers, e.g., Bernardino Ochino and Pietro Martire Vermigli. He seems to have held the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Many consider him a Socinian or Unitarian.