JOHANNES EVANGELISTA GOSSNER (1773-1858), German divine and philanthropist, was born at Hausen near Augsburg on the 14th of December 1773, and educated at the university of Dillingen. Here like Martin Boos and others he came under the spell of the Evangelical movement promoted by Johann Michael Sailer, the professor of pastoral theology. After taking priest's orders, Gossner held livings at Dirlewang (1804-1811) and Munich (1811-1817), but his evangelical tendencies brought about his dismissal and in 1826 he formally left the Roman Catholic for the Protestant communion. As minister of the Bethlehem church in Berlin (1829-1846) he was conspicuous not only for practical and effective preaching, but for the founding of schools, asylums and missionary agencies. He died on the 20th of March 1858.
Lives by Bethmann-Hollweg (Berlin, 1858) and H. Dalton (Berlin, 1878).