Adolph Kolping

Kolping

Adolph Kolping was born on December 8th, 1813, in Kerpen near Cologne. As the fourth child of a shepherd, he grew up in rather modest living conditions. He became a shoemaker and worked in this profession for ten years. As time passed by, he increasingly yearned to escape what he perceived as deplorable living conditions and become a priest. So, at the age of 23, Adolph Kolping gave up his profession and enrolled in the grammar school “Marzellengymnasium” in Cologne. During the summer of 1841 he began his theological studies in Munich, which he later continued in Bonn and Cologne. Adolph Kolping received his priestly ordination on April 13th, 1845, in the Cologne Minorite Church. In the same year, he first served in Elberfeld as chaplain. There, he also learnt about the Young Men's Association and the situation of travelling journeymen. In 1849, Adolph Kolping was appointed cathedral vicar in Cologne, where he was intensively involved in spreading the idea and founding Journeymen's Societies and Journeymen's Houses (Kolpinghäuser since 1933). With the opening of the Cologne Journeymen's House in 1853, Adolph Kolping laid the groundwork for all other Kolpinghouses.

These Houses offered travelling journeymen not only accommodation and food, but also a spiritual home. At the same time, they were meeting places for the Journeymen's Societies (now Kolping Families). Training and further education, socialising and encounters, community and mutual help marked everyday life in these Journeymen’s Houses – a tradition that the Kolpinghouses continue to this day.