About the Author

Dr. Anthony P. Pezzotta was born in Bergamo, Italy, in 1935. He studied fifteen years in Roman Catholic seminaries of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Italy, England, Spain, and Germany, and was ordained a Catholic priest on February 11, 1961 in Turin, Italy, by Cardinal Maurilio Fossati. In the Catholic Church he earned undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and Greek and the equivalent of a Master’s degree in Theology from the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. In the Philippines he served as Director of Schools and Seminaries and as Rector of local Salesian communities (1964–1974).

On February 26, 1974, after studying the Scriptures on his own and through the testimony of Rev. Ernesto Montealegre, a Filipino Baptist pastor, Tony trusted Christ alone as Savior and Lord of his life. He left the Catholic church and joined the Santa Cruz Baptist Church, where he was baptized on March 3, 1974. There he met Zita Vitangcol, a Sunday School teacher, whom he later married. God blessed Tony and Zita with three children: Marie, Angela, and Daniel.

Tony completed a Master’s degree at Denver Seminary in 1975 and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity by Western Seminary in 1991. In 1976 he was ordained to the Gospel Ministry at the First Baptist Church of West Los Angeles, and that June he and Zita were appointed by the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (now WorldVenture) as missionaries to the Philippines, where they ministered through evangelism, discipleship, and theological training until 1999.

Back in the United States, Tony served as Director of Ethnic Ministries for the Conservative Baptist Association of Southern California (now the Pacific Church Network), working joyfully with Hispanic and Asian pastors until a rare form of Parkinson’s disease ended his working life in 2009. His final years were spent with Zita in Littleton, Colorado, where their married life had begun. After a long, difficult illness, the Lord graciously called Tony home to his beloved Savior on April 2, 2014.

Tony was wonderfully gifted by God with fluency in ten languages, and with something rarer still: the ability to disagree without despising. His warmth and clarity endeared him to people of every background, often in their own language. His life’s work lives on in his family, his students, and everyone he encouraged toward a truth encounter of their very own.

The book

Truth Encounter was first published in 1996, with new editions in 1999, 2002, and a revised and updated Fourth Edition in 2021. The book is now available in paperback, Kindle, and PDF.

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