Anton Kopp (theologian)

Anton Kopp (born June 7, 1796 in Rüthen , † 1870 in Chicago ) was Catholic Vicar General of Chicago .

Live and act

Anton Kopp was born as the first son of the farrier Franz-Josef Kopp. He studied theology in Münster , where he was ordained a priest on March 9, 1819 . He then worked as vicar and later as rector in Menden . What motivated the clergyman to emigrate to America with a group of Westphalian and Rhenish families in 1834, although he had been pastor of the parish in Kirchveischede since 1828 , is unknown. Kopp came to Detroit on October 25 and traveled in ten days to Ionia, about 190 kilometers away. The settlers from Westphalia acquired 140 hectares of land in the "Grand River Valley" in what is now Clinton County , an overgrown and swampy forest area, which they transformed into an agricultural, fertile landscape. After completing the land purchase, Anton Kopp traveled back to Detroit to visit Bishop Friedrich Reese . From him the clergyman was officially assigned the new German congregation - "the beginning of the Catholic Church in Michigan", as Kopp described it in his notes. Kopp began building a church in 1837, worked as a pastor and also gave school lessons.

In 1839 he was elected the new parish's first inspector. After more and more German families settled there, it was decided to name the place Westphalia . By 1923 over 300 families from Westphalia emigrated there.

Anton Kopp stayed in Westphalia until 1843 and eventually went to Chicago , where he established the St. Michaels Parish - today the largest German parish in the United States. A few years later, Anton Kopp became Vicar General of Chicago.

literature

• Hermann J. Krämer: From Rüthen to the New World. Pastor Anton Kopp founded Westphalia (USA) . In: Heimatkalender Kreis Soest , 2002 (2003), p. 68.
• Westphalia Historical Society (Ed.): Of Pilgrimage, Prayer and Promise. A Story of St. Mary's, Westphalia 1836-1986 . Westphalia, me. 1986.

Web links

• Article: From Blumenthal to the Wild West