Kopp, Georg von

KOPP, Georg von. - Cardinal, b. at Duderstadt on 25 July 1837, d. at Troppau, now Opava, on 4 March 1914. Ordained a priest in 1862, and appointed director of a school for the training of women teachers, he occupied himself with pedagogical problems and with school policy.

He suffered persecution at the hands of the Prussian government in the era of the Kulturkampf; but later, once the struggle between Church and State had ended, he took part in the political life of the country as a member of the Prussian House of Lords (from 1886), carrying out a work of conciliation between the two powers. He also showed himself conciliatory, as a member of the House of Lords and of the Diet of Austrian Silesia, toward the Poles, opposing the Prussian law for the expropriation of their landed property. He was also a member of the International Conference for the Protection of Workers of 1890 and of that for the reform of higher education in Prussia. Bishop of Fulda in 1881, prince-bishop of Breslau from 1887, he was named cardinal by Leo XIII in 1893 and, as such, was head of the German episcopate until his death.