After years of service to the diocese,
Father Wilson I. Korpi is retiring.
Father Wilson I.
Korpi, former pastor of Holy Family Church in Dale City, was born
March 8, 1945, in Chicago to Wilson and Florence, the middle of three children.
He was raised in Dowagiac, Mich. He graduated from Dowagiac Union High School
in 1962.
He earned his bachelor’s from Southeastern University in
Washington in; a master’s in education at Southern Illinois University in
Edwardsville, Ill.; and both a master’s in religious studies and an advanced
catechetical degree from Notre Dame Graduate School at Christendom College in
Alexandria in 1988. He served in the U.S. Army (1962-65), and began a career in
financial management in 1965.
He was raised Lutheran and entered the Catholic Church in 1964.
He and his wife Vincenza “Vinnie” Fimia were married in 1968. They
adopted their son, Michael, in 1978. Father Korpi was ordained to the permanent
diaconate in 1988 and assigned to St. Philip Church in Falls Church. He served
there for 10 years then at Church of the Nativity in Burke until entering the
seminary in 2004.
In 2003, his wife of 35 years died, and he discerned a calling to
the priesthood. He attended Blessed John XXIII National Seminary in Weston,
Mass., which specializes in late vocations. He was ordained at the Cathedral of
St. Thomas More in Arlington by Bishop Paul S. Loverde in 2008.
He served as parochial vicar of St. Mary of the Immaculate
Conception Church in Fredericksburg (2008–10) and of Nativity (2010–18). In
2018, he became parochial administrator at Holy Family and was named pastor
later that year. In retirement, he plans to live in Woodbridge.
