The English Church-Ostend
The growth of Ostend from a small fishing village to a thriving port and holiday resort has been influenced by wars and changes of government, for Belgium has, in the past, been part of greater nations and often occupied by foreign troups.
Under Austrian rule Ostend was in a period of expansion. The port flourished and British merchants and their families settled here. Two thousand British residents brought not only prosperity, but also their own way of life, with English landlords in pubs and English plays at the theatre. No wonder then that, as soon as it became possible, Ostend had its "English Church" with a resident Chaplain. This was to occur in the early 1780's when the Austrian emperor, Joseph II, decreed religious reforms, one of which gave non-Catholics freedom to exercise their religious beliefs. The Chaplain was lodged in an old warehouse serving also as a place of worship.
However, when the French revolutionaries took over this
country in the 1790's, the British left Ostend. Some where to
return after the victory of Waterloo,
and in 1817 a Dutch (continue here - opens in a new
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The English Church Bruges
In the 15th c.the English merchants worshipped in the Church of St. John,St. Janplaats, at one time styled "Place des Anglais". When all other churches in Bruges were closed owing to disputes caused by the duplicate Popes, the English church was the only one out of sixty allowed to remain open. After the exodus of the merchants, St. John's Church was demolished.
After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the English community grew, and in 1818 was allowed, by the Dutch colonel whose troops were using it as a garrison church, to worship in the former chapel of the Theresian Convent in the Ezelstraat. This convent had been suppressed a few decades earlier by Joseph II. After Belgium's independence in 1830, the chapel became state property and the Anglicans were given exclusive use of it, when it became known as St. Mary's Church. During the nineteen-sixties, this church got into such a state of disrepair it became unsafe and the Anglicans (continue here - opens in a new window) (pdf file)