Anthony Kohlmann SJ (born Anton; July 13, 1771 – April 11, 1836) was an Alsatian Catholic priest, missionary, theologian, and Jesuit educator. He played a decisive role in the early formation of the Archdiocese of New York, where he was the subject of a lawsuit that for the first time recognized the confessional privilege in the United States, and served as the president of Georgetown College from 1817 to 1820.

Kohlmann joined the Society of the Sacred Heart and ministered throughout Europe before entering the Society of Jesus. He left for the United States in 1806, where he taught at Georgetown College and ministered to German-speaking congregations in the mid-Atlantic region. In 1808, he became the pastor of New York City's only Catholic church, and then was made the apostolic administrator and first vicar general of the newly created Diocese of New York. He established the diocese's first cathedral in 1809. Kohlmann also founded a school, the New York Literary Institution; established an orphanage; and invited the first Ursuline nuns to the United States.

In 1813, the City of New York sought to compel Kohlmann to disclose the identity of a thief, which he learned during a confession. In a landmark decision, the state court ruled that he could not be compelled to violate the seal of the confessional, recognizing the confessional privilege for the first time in the United States. Kohlmann returned to Maryland in 1815 as superior of the Jesuits' Maryland Mission and president of Georgetown College. Three years later, he left Georgetown to establish the Washington Seminary, which became Gonzaga College High School. In 1824, Pope Leo XII named Kohlmann the chair of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Kohlmann later became a consultor to the College of Cardinals and various curial congregations, and was then appointed Qualificator of the Inquisition.

Anton Kohlmann was born on July 13, 1771, in Kaysersberg, in the region of Alsace in the Kingdom of France. As a youth, he began his studies in the nearby town of Colmar. He joined the Capuchin order, but fled to Switzerland because the order was persecuted as part of the larger dechristianization of France during the French Revolution. He completed his theological studies at the Collège Saint-Michel, and was ordained a priest in Fribourg in April 1796. Kohlmann's brother, Paul, also became a priest and would join him in the United States.

Shortly after his ordination, he joined the Society of the Sacred Heart, and completed his novitiate period in Göggingen, located in the Holy Roman Empire. He ministered throughout Austria for two years, during which he drew commendations for his work in Hagenbrunn during a plague. He then went to Italy, where he was chaplain at a military hospital in Pavia for two years. Kohlmann was sent to Bavaria in 1801, where he became the director of the Ecclesiastical Seminary at Dillingen. He then spent time as the rector of a college in Berlin, before founding a college in Amsterdam, which was run by the Society of the Faith of Jesus, an order with which the Society of the Sacred Heart had merged in 1799.

Kohlmann applied for admission to the Society of Jesus, which, despite its worldwide suppression since 1773, had been operating in the Russian Empire. During the two years that his application being considered, he resided at Kensington College in London, where he learned English. He eventually was instructed to travel to Russia, and he arrived in Riga in June 1805. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in Daugavpils on June 21, 1803, where he spent only a year before the superiors were satisfied that he was academically qualified. The following year, John Carroll, the Bishop of Baltimore, put out a call for additional Jesuits in the United States, and Kohlmann was sent as a missionary, prior to taking his final vows.

Kohlmann left Hamburg on August 20, 1806, arrived in Baltimore on November 4. In the United States, he began anglicizing his name as Anthony. The Jesuit Superior General formally permitted the Jesuits to be restored in the United States in 1805, and a novitiate was opened the following year at Georgetown College in Washington, D.C. Francis Neale was named the master of novices, and Kohlmann, though still a novice himself, was made the socius to the master of novices. He was also assigned to teach philosophy.

Kohlmann introduced many of the customs that the Jesuits in exile the Russian Empire observed. While at Georgetown, he made trips to minister to the people of Alexandria, Virginia, and Baltimore, as well as to German-speaking congregations in rural Pennsylvania. He also heard confessions from parishioners at Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia because their pastor had not mastered the English language.