Monument Paster Pype - Ostend

In a park next to the Sint-Pieter en Paulkuskerk stands the tall sandstone Paster Pype monument from 1939 by Karel Demuynck (1899-1949) from Nieuwpoort and reworked in May 1988 by the Ostend tombstone cutter Roland Boury. Henri Pype (1854 – 3 June 1926), popularly called Paster Pype, was curate in this church. As a fisherman's chaplain, he devoted himself to the fishermen and their families and he was honorably called "Father of Fishermen". He became chaplain at sea in 1886. This statue stood for many decades above the entrance of the Paster Pypeschool "El Mar". But when this school was demolished, the statue got its final place next to the church.

In collaboration with the Sisters of Saint Vincent, he founded the “Germana”, a sewing and cooking school for fishermen's girls. This was located in the Cirkelstraat.

P. set up a maritime museum in the fishing school, where fish, shells, maritime utensils and rarities found a place. The museum itself existed until about 1967 in the now renovated school buildings of the Sint-Petrus- en -Paulusplein, but expanded with an aquarium.

Pype himself also wrote textbooks on fishing:
- A book for the fishermen and the fishermen's schools (Ostend, 1890);
- About fishing (Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1911);
- About motorbikes (Ghent, 1912);

and of a different nature :
- Church Book for Sailors (Ostend).

Willem Vandenameele