The Church of St Mary or more formally, the Parish church of the Assumption of Mary 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 ...

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 the southern village of

Mqabba Mqabba () is a town in the Western Region of Malta. It has a traditional Maltese village layout, with a population of about 3,339 inhabitants, as of January 2019. The focal point is the Parish Church of the Assumption, found at the core of the v ...

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 parish of Mqabba was created in 1598 and the Church of St Basil was chosen as the new parish church. Construction on the new church commenced in 1663. The parish title was transferred to the newly built church of the Assumption in 1699. The new church was built on the site of two chapels, one dedicated to the

Assumption of Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Catholic Mariology#Dogmatic teachings, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it on 1 November 1950 in his apostolic constitution as follows: It leaves open the question of w ...

and the other to the

Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...

, mentioned by inquisitor

Pietro Dusina Pietro Dusina was an Italian Roman Catholic priest from Brescia who was the inquisitor and apostolic delegate to Malta between 1574 and 1575. Dusina was nominated inquisitor of Malta by Pope Gregory XIII on 3 July 1574, and he arrived on the isl ...

in 1575 during his apostolic visit. The new church was dedicated to the Assumption, as was one of the chapels, while the chapel of the Annunciation was commemorated by an altar in the new church. The church was severely damaged during

WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Damage included the collapse of the dome and the roof of the southern transept. Renovation works took place and were completed by 1947.

Plans

The church is built in the form of a Latin cross with a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, a

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

and two

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

s, on to the north and the other to the south of the church."Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Mqabba"
''Planning Authority''. Retrieved on 02 April 2017.

References

{{Parish churches in Malta and Gozo 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Malta Mqabba National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands