John Peter Arendzen

John Peter Arendzen (6 January 1873, Amsterdam – 1954, Ware, Hertfordshire), was a Catholic priest who spread the Catholic faith in England. He was once named by the Daily Mail "one of the preachers of the century".

Life John Peter Arendzen was born in Haarlem, Amsterdam on 6 January 1873, one of nine children born to the distinguished artist and etcher Petrus Johannes Arendzen and his wife Epiphania Stracke. Four of their five sons became priests. In 1873 Petrus Arendzen was commissioned by the Dutch government to make copies of a number of Dutch paintings in English collections, and so brought his family to London. John Arendzen was educated privately at home and then attended St Mary's College, Oscott. St. Mary's was the diocesan seminary for the Diocese of Birmingham, but in fact functioned as a general seminary serving a number of dioceses. It was the practice of the Diocese of Westminster to send seminarians to St. Mary's. Arendzen was ordained in 1895. He and his brother Alphonse, also a member of the Catholic Missionary Society, both served at the parish of St Mary Magdalen in Willesden Green.

He became an expert in Arabic and was professor of Holy Scripture at St Edmund's College, Ware. He wrote a number of articles for scholarly journals, chiefly on the Old Testament.

He made many contributions to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. He was also a religious book reviewer for the Dublin Review. Arendzen also wrote articles for the Journal of Theological Studies and the Jewish Quarterly.