The Parish church of St Margaret is a

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 ...

church that serves the village of

Sannat Sannat () is an administrative unit of Malta, on the island of Gozo, with a population of 2,117 people (March 2014). Ta' Sannat is in the south of Gozo, popular for its very high cliffs, ancient cart ruts, temples and dolmens, and rich fauna an ...

Gozo Gozo ( ), known in classical antiquity, antiquity as Gaulos, is an island in the Malta#The Maltese archipelago, Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of the Republic of Malta. After the Malta Island, island of Malta ...

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 church dedicated to

Saint Margaret of Antioch Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr () in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in Western Christianity, on 30th of July (Julian calendar) by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and on Epip ...

dates back to the late Middle Ages. It is documented as functioning in 1575. It is also recorded that in the 16th century the church had a cemetery and a bell tower. When the parish of Sannat was created on April 28, 1688 by Bishop

Davide Cocco Palmieri Davide Cocco Palmieri was an Italian, Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Malta from 1684 until 1711. Biography Cocco Palmieri was born in Southern Italy in March 1632. He was ordained priest of the Sovereign Military Order of Mal ...

, the chapel of St Margaret was chosen as the new parish church of

and neighbouring

Munxar Munxar () is an administrative unit of Malta, which lies on the southern side of the island of Gozo. As of March 2014, its population was 1,454 people. Close to this village, there is Xlendi Bay, a popular tourist resort engulfed in a fjord ...

. Prior to this, the localities of

and

were part of the

parish of St George St George Parish is one of the 57 parishes of Cumberland County, New South Wales, a cadastral unit for use on land titles. It is bounded in the north by the Cooks River, in the west by Cox's Creek and Salt Pan Creek, and in the south by the Geor ...

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ) is the Capital (political), capital city of Morocco and the List of cities in Morocco, country's seventh-largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. ...

. In fact it was one of the first parishes to be established in

after the original parish of St George. As the population of the two localities grew it was decided to build a new and larger church. Work commenced in 1718 and when finished, was consecrated on October 19, 1755. The new church was built in the form of a Latin cross. The church was enlarged in the 1860s and blessed once work terminated on 22 November 1868. The two spires and the dome were built later in 1910. The parish church was raised to the Archipresbyteral status on 27 December 1893 and on December 12, 1957 the parish church became a matrix when

became an independent parish. The church building is listed on the

National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands The National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands (NICPMI) is a heritage register listing the cultural property of Malta. The inventory includes properties such as archaeological sites, fortifications, religious buildings, mon ...

Works of art

The titular painting depicting St Margaret of Antioch was done by local artist

Stefano Erardi Stefano Erardi (1630–1716) was a Maltese painter whose works may be found in many churches around the Maltese Islands. His style has been described as either late Mannerist or Baroque. Biography Erardi was born in Valletta in 1630 to Sebasti ...

. The original titular statue of St Margaret was first brought to

in 1863. In 1891 the statue was replaced by the present one. The feast in honour of St Margaret is celebrated every year on the 4th Sunday of July."Sannat"
''Diocese of Gozo''. Retrieved on 12 August 2015.

References

{{Parish churches in Malta and Gozo Baroque church buildings in Malta 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Malta Church buildings with domes Sannat National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands Roman Catholic churches completed in 1755