Honoré Jozef Coppieters was born at Overmere[REF] in East Flanders, the eldest son of Benedictus Coppieters and Maria Sidonia Verstraeten.
From 1900 till 1920 Coppieters taught Biblical Exegesis and Hebrew at Leuven's Faculty of Theology where he also involved himself in student activism, becoming provost/moderator of the Amicitia radical catholic student fraternity established at Leuven in 1911 [REF].