Monsignor Michel-Gaspard Coppenrath (4 June 1924 – 16 August 2008) was the Tahitian Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Papeete in French Polynesia for 26 years from 1973 until 1999.

[1][3] He later moved to France, where he served as a member of the French Resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II before joining the priesthood.

[1] He was the first ordained priest of indigenous Polynesian descent in French Polynesia since Tiripone Mama Taira Putairi in 1874.

[1] His survivors included his brother, the next archbishop of Papeete Hubert Coppenrath, and two nieces, Béatrice Vernaudon, the mayor of Pirae and a former member of the French National Assembly, and Armelle Merceron, who served as the French Polynesian solidarity minister under President Gaston Tong Sang.

[2] A public wake and funeral were held at the Maria No Te Hau Catholic Church in the Mission neighborhood of Papeete.

[4] All Catholic schools in Faa'a, Papeete, Pirae and Punaauia were closed on 18 August 2008, the day of Coppenrath's funeral.

Your righteousness and your openness, your broad culture, your natural authority and your love of others were unanimously appreciated in our 'country’, but also among other churches in Oceania.

He leaves the lasting memory of a man profoundly good and warm whose great courtesy was only equaled by the firmness of his beliefs.