Augustin Keller

Augustin Keller (10 November 1805 in Sarmenstorf, Aargau – 8 January 1883)[1] was a Swiss politician and a co-founder of the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland, an Old Catholic Church denomination based in Switzerland.

[1] After studying philology, history, pedagogy, philosophy and literature in Munich and Breslau, where he was influenced by Ludwig Wachler, Keller first worked as a teacher in Lucerne[1] and was the director of the teacher seminar of Aargau from 1834 to 1856.

After conflicts resembling a civil war between government troops and Catholic insurgents in January 1841, Keller called the monasteries antagonistic to progress and made them accountable for the insurrection in Freiamt during a speech in parliament;[2] the government then abolished all monasteries in Aargau.

The Monastery dispute of Aargau caused an international crisis and ended in the Sonderbund war of 1847, which was followed by the founding of the Swiss federal republic in 1848.

[1] As president of the Aargau church council, Keller denounced the dogma of infallibility of Pope Pius IX in 1870 and called for the establishment of an independent Swiss national church during the Kulturkampf.