Bishop Andrew Cozzens

Bishop Andrew Cozzens was installed as the eighth bishop of Crookston, Minnesota on Dec. 6, 2021. Before that, he served for eight years as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Raised in Denver, Bishop Cozzens is the youngest of three children. He graduated from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, with majors in English literature and philosophy. After college, he spent two years as a missionary first travelling around the country, with Twin Cities-based NET Ministries doing retreats, and then for one year at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul doing campus evangelization with Saint Paul’s Outreach.

In 1992, he was a founding member of the Companions of Christ, an association of diocesan priests who pursue holiness together through commitments to fraternal life and the evangelical counsels. Entering seminary in 1993, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis in 1997. After serving five years in two parishes, he was sent to Rome for doctoral studies at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in 2002. Upon his return to Minnesota, Bishop Cozzens began service as a professor of sacramental theology at the Saint Paul Seminary, where he also worked as a formation director for the seminarians until 2013.

In 2008, he defended his doctoral dissertation on how the priest is called to be a living image of Jesus Christ the Bridegroom of the church, exploring the theology of the priesthood and the evangelical counsels of obedience, chastity and poverty.

Bishop Cozzens is serving as Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, where he is leading a three-year National Eucharistic Revival that will begin in June.