Mgarr

Assumption Parish Church

The small village of Mgarr had a church which dated from the 15th century. In 1579, Paolo Cumbo founded here an ecclesiastical living known later as tal-Berqux. Its rector, among other duties, had to celebrate the Marian feasts of the Assumption, Nativity, Purification, Annunciation and Visitation in this church. In 1898 Mgarr became a Parish and the people started building their present church around the small chapel in 1918. The stone column with a cross on top called Salib tad-Dejma (which denoted the meeting place for Maltese defenders in the early middle ages) was dismantled and re-erected on one side of the new church. The dome was completed between 1935 and 1946. Elliptical in shape, it hints how the funds might have come from the selling of farmers' produce especially eggs. When the new church was ready, the old one was dismantled. The inside of the church is still bare and austere in the beginning of the third millennium, but the parishioners know how to decorate it especially for important feasts.

Chapel of perpetual Adoration

This new chapel opens on different schedules for summer and winter and exists in the semi-basement of the Parish Church.

Chapel

Even through World War II, the Maltese kept a deep faith. In a recently re-opened wartime shelter this is shown in a place set apart for a small chapel where the people of Mgarr could pray even during enemy bombing. This shelter is situated quite close to the parish church and is accessible to the public from a restaurant called 'Il-Barri'.

Chapel

Principi Niccolo Sayd built a private-use chapel around 1530 within his property at Santi area of Bingemma hills. His wife Angela was buried there and so were family up to the turn of the twentieth century when around 1907 it fell into disrepair. Today one cannot distinguish the chapel from a pile of rubble. 

Chapel

A private chapel of unknown dedication in an abandoned mansion called Strickland House or 'Ta Chalie' within the limits of Mgarr.

Nativity of Our Lady Zebbiegh

Built before 1636 and deconsecrated by Bishop Balaguer. Lost. 

Our Lady of Itria (tat-trieq, tal-Ittra or tal-Itrija)

The title, an abbreviation from the Greek Hodigitria (She who shows the way) was given to a portrayal of Our Lady pointing her finger to her Son. The Church is situated on the top of the cliff overlooking Mgarr. It was built in 1615 by Gio.Maria Xara at Bingemma Ridge over prehistoric tombs that existed in the caves of the ridge. About 1685, a new one was built substituting the previous church which had been closed to public worship in 1658. The new chapel stood a few yards away from the site of the first one and its benefactor was Stanislao Xara. Nowadays it is under the care of the community of Priests (M.S.S.P.) from St.Agatha, Rabat. 

St.Agatha

Mentioned existing in the Tower of St.Agatha over Gnejna bay in the Mons.B.Rull report of 1762. In 1866 it is again reported by A Ferres in his list of Maltese and Gozitan churches. 

St.Anne Zebbiegh

The need of a new church was felt when the area on the outskirts of Mgarr at Zebbiegh began developing and in recent times Archbishop Mercieca who blessed the foundation stone of a new church saw it finished in the first decade of the third millennium.

St.Michael Archangel

Found abandoned by Bishop Belaguer in 1636, this chapel existed at Wied Gerzuma on the way to Rabat. Lost.

St.Peter

Bishop Molina in 1678 found this church had been already demolished for a hundred years. It used to belong to the Ferriolo family.