Archbishop Kessler was born on 12 August 1862 in Louis. He was appointed Bishop of Tiraspol on 1 April 1904 and was consecrated the 5th Bishop of Tiraspol on 28 October 1904 and took residence in the diocesan headquarters in Saratov.
He left Saratov in August 1917 and moved to Odessa and then Krasna in Bessarabia in January 1920, finally to Berlin in September 1921.
Bishop Kessler made a trip to the United States to raise funds for the famine stricken among the German colonies along the Volga as well as in the Black Sea area.
He retired to a cloister in Zinnowitz on the Baltic Sea, giving up his diocesan office on 27 November 1929.
He was appointed Titular Archbishop of Bosprous on 23 January 1930.
He died on 10 December 1933 and is buried by the side of his predecessor in office, Franz Xavier Zottmann, in Ornbau in Central Franconia.
- Herbermann, Charles George. The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1913): 739.
- Bosch, Anton. “Geschichte der deutschen Katholiken und ihrer Priester in Russland.” Heimatbuch 2001/2002 (Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 2001): 107-118.
- Bourret, Jean-François. “L'Église catholique en Russie de 1917 à nos jours.” Bibliothèque en ligne viewed 14 July 2008.
- The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church [Online].
Bishop Kessler.