The Parish Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or simply known as the Carmelite Church is a Doric

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

located in

Gżira Gżira () is a town in the Eastern Region, Malta, Eastern Region of Malta. It is located between Msida and Sliema, also bordering on Ta' Xbiex. It has a population of 11,699 as of January 2019. The word ''Gżira'' means "island" in Maltese ...

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

History

The original chapel of

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Our Lady of Mount Carmel, or Virgin of Carmel, is a Roman Catholic Titles of Mary, title of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated as patron saint, patroness of the Carmelites, Carmelite Order. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on M ...

goes back to the early 20th century. The chapel was founded after an incident that took place on July 10, 1902, when two drunken sailors started throwing stones at a house near the bridge leading to Manoel island. One of the stones became stuck between the glass and an image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in a small shrine on the wall of the house. Locals took this as a divine sign. The image and stone were carefully removed and preserved in the parish church of Our Lady Star of the Sea in Sliema. After some years the mage was returned to Gżira and a small chapel was built to house the image. On July 7, 1913, Archbishop

Pietro Pace Sir Pietro Pace (9 April 1831 – 29 July 1914) was a senior-ranking Maltese prelate who served as the Titular Archbishop of Rhodes and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malta, Bishop of Malta from 1889 until his death in 1914. Biography Archbishop ...

made the small chapel a vice-parish church serving the locals under the authority of the parish of Sliema. On 15 May 1921 Archbishop Maurus Caruana created the independent parish of Gżira with the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel as the parish church. The chapel had a capacity of 200 people which was too small for the increasing population. Consequently, a new church was built between 1921 and 1935. The church was consecrated on 23 May 1959. The image and the stone are still preserved in the church in a side chapel."Gżira"
'' Archdiocese of Malta''. Retrieved on 07 June 2017.

References

{{Parish churches in Malta and Gozo 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Malta Carmelite churches in Malta Gżira