Reverend John Comper (1823–1903) was a priest of the Scottish Episcopal Church who dedicated his life to helping the street children and prostitutes of Victorian Aberdeen. In 2003 Father Comper was declared a 'Hero of the Faith' by the Scottish Episcopal Church – the equivalent of a saint and the greatest honour the Church can bestow. In the Calendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church he is remembered on 27 July, the day of his death.

John Comper was born in Nutbourne, Pulborough in Sussex, on 1 October 1823, where his father farmed a smallholding. John was the youngest of a family of seven.

The family name "Comper" is a French surname possibly from Brittany; the Comper forebears being probably sixteenth-century Huguenot refugees though this is disputed by Anthony Symondson who argues the family is more likely of Norman origin.

From his earliest years he was very interested in matters spiritual, and fascinated by the liturgy, which he studied throughout his life. At the age of 24 he completed training as a student teacher at a college in Chichester. He was aware that without a university degree he would not be accepted for the priesthood in England, and therefore he turned his attention to Scotland, where the Scottish Episcopal Church was in need of clergy.

Already an adherent to the principles of the Oxford Movement, he began ecclesiastical life as a lay reader at a church school in Kirriemuir. He moved from Kirriemuir to Crieff to take part in the educational work at St Margaret's College which had been started by the Revd Alexander Lendrum, embarking on a special course of study in preparation for Holy Orders. St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth was consecrated on Tuesday 10 December 1850, and the following day, Comper was ordained deacon in the Cathedral by Bishop Alexander Penrose Forbes on behalf of the aged Diocesan Patrick Torry, then in his 43rd year of his prelacy. The preacher at that service was the Rev. J. M. Neale, the hymn-writer, with whom the young Comper kept up a warm friendship.

He was ordained priest at Crieff prior to his appointment at Nairn. In Nairn he was to take charge of a new Mission raised to mitigate the effects of a schism that had arisen within the newly formed congregation of St Ninian's Church built in 1845. This congregation in refusing to accept the authority of the bishop became an "English" episcopal chapel. Comper also opened a school in Nairn and his success soon drew the attention of the Episcopal authorities.

Bishop Robert Eden, newly consecrated in Edinburgh on 9 March 1851, recruited Comper to take services in an upper room in Nairn, before appointing him as Diocesan Mission Priest for the Moray Diocese and as Bishop's Chaplain. Whilst based in Inverness Comper opened another day school and a chapel, now represented by St Andrew's Cathedral. Comper was also put in charge of the newly created Mission at Cromarty before returning to the Brechin Diocese to fill the vacancy at Stonehaven in 1857.

He took charge of the ancient congregation that originally met at the Stonehaven Tolbooth, but had removed long since the Jacobite rising of 1745 and Duke of Cumberland's occupation of the chapel as a stable for his horses, to the Stonehaven High Street site. This meeting house was demolished on Cumberland's orders in 1746. Services were then held clandestinely for some years in a house in the High Street. Later a "Qualified Chapel" was built in Cameron Street, the two congregations as yet existing as separate entities. The Qualified Congregation joined the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1803, but it took a further twelve years for them to amalgamate in a union whereupon they moved back into the old Qualified Chapel, this time as a full-fledged congregation of the Episcopal Church. It was in this building that Comper ministered from 1857 to 1861.