Koch, Johann Ludwig

Catholic clergyman, lawyer, librarian

Born: 01.11.1772 in Niederklein near Amöneburg

Died: 02.05.1853 in Wiesbaden

Koch, who was ordained a priest in 1798, was secret secretary to the last reigning Elector-Archbishop of Mainz and Bishop of Worms, Karl Theodor Anton Maria Reichsfreiherr von Dalberg, as well as assessor at the ecclesiastical court in Aschaffenburg. He obtained his doctorate in law in Würzburg in 1807 and became professor of church history and canon law at the university, which had been moved from Mainz to Aschaffenburg due to the end of the Mainz electorate. On behalf of Dalberg, he worked on the reorganization of church institutions in Germany. He strove for a German national church, which was to receive its legal existence solely from the state.

In 1815, he entered the service of Nassau as a church and high school councilor in Wiesbaden and drafted the School Edict of 1817.

His tasks in Nassau also included the reorganization of Catholic ecclesiastical relations, which ultimately led to the foundation of the diocese of Limburg. In 1818, the Nassau government sent him to a meeting of representatives of several Protestant states in Frankfurt am Main, where the principles for a declaration to be presented in Rome were to be discussed. Here Koch caused an uproar among theologians with an initiative to relax celibacy. According to his ideas, priests who no longer held ecclesiastical offices should be returned to the laity and be able to marry.

After Koch married according to the Protestant rite on January 15, 1821 with the permission of Duke Wilhelm zu Nassau, a scandal broke out. Koch was removed from his position as official Catholic church and school adviser. However, he continued to advise the Nassau government on church and school matters.

In 1837 he was appointed head librarian at the state library in Wiesbaden. He retired in 1851. He was the initiator of the Nassauischer Kunstverein e.V.