Coenraad Laurens Coolen (1775 in Ungaran – 2 July 1873, in

Mojokerto Mojokerto ( (''Måjåkěrtå'')) is a city in East Java Province of Indonesia. It is located 40 km southwest of Surabaya, the provincial capital, and constitutes one of the component units of the Surabaya metropolitan area (known as Gerbang ...

) is one of the lay

evangelists Evangelist(s) may refer to: Religion * Four Evangelists, the authors of the canonical Christian Gospels * Evangelism, publicly preaching the Gospel with the intention of spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ * Evangelist (Anglican Church), a ...

who did some of the first evangelical work in

East Java East Java (, , ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located in the easternmost third of Java island. It has a land border only with the province of Central Java to the west; the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean border its northern ...

.S.H. Soekotjo. 2009. Sejarah Gereja-gereja Kristen Jawa - jilid 1. Yogyakarta: Taman Pustaka Kristen. hlm. 142-147.

Biography

Coolen was born in Ungaran in 1775. Despite his Dutch surname and given names, his father supposedly was from

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and his mother was a daughter of Prince Kojaran of the noble family of Mataram.Denys Lombard. 1996. Nusa Jawa: Silang Budaya Kajian Sejarah Terpadu: Jaringan Asia, Volume 2. Jakarta: Gramedia. hlm. 100. Coolen was educated in ELS and then went into

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer military, volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Few nations, such ...

. While there, he came into contact with a group of pious commoners named "the Surabaya Saints" led by the German watchmaker Johannes Emde. In

Surabaya Surabaya is the capital city of East Java Provinces of Indonesia, province and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. Located on the northeastern corner of Java island, on the Madura Strai ...

Coolen married an English woman and had five children. Possibly after her death, he remarried Sadiyah and had three children with her. After some years working for the military and the forestry service, Coolen obtained permission to clear forest in the Ngoro region near , Jombang). He founded a village, which had around 1000 Javanese inhabitants in the 1840s. Unlike Emde in Surabaya, he did not baptize his people until 1854 and never had them change their names or cut their hair. His assistants Paul Tosari and Abisai Ditatruna founded a new village , which for the next century would become the center of Christianity in East Java.Jan Sihar Aritonang & Karel Adriaan Steenbrink
A History of Christianity in Indonesia
BRILL, 2008. Pages 640-643.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coolen, Coenraad Laurens 1775 births 1873 deaths Protestant missionaries in Indonesia People from Semarang Regency 19th-century Dutch East Indies people