Carl Henrik Alopaeus

Carl Henrik Alopaeus (1825 to 1892) was a Finnish Lutheran bishop who became a pioneer of deaf education in Finland, earning the title apostle to the Deaf for his sustained work building schooling for deaf children. Born in Juva in the Grand Duchy of Finland, he combined church duties, becoming dean of Porvoo in 1881 and bishop in 1885, with founding and directing the Turku school for the deaf. He worked alongside educators Carl Oscar Malm and Anna Heikel and pressed for deaf education to be folded into the public school system rather than left as a separate charity. He also wrote on deaf education methods and religious instruction, work that shaped Finnish deaf schooling for decades after his death.