Pillar 01 · History & Heritage

St Gregory’s Church and the 1614 Procession in Żejtun

St Gregory’s is the older of Żejtun’s two parish churches — medieval in its bones, baroque in its overlay, and the destination of a procession the parish has walked every year since 1614. It is also the quieter church, which is part of the point.

This article is a stub for now. The procession in particular deserves a longer piece, and we’ll publish that as a separate companion when we have the photographs to do it justice.

The older church

St Gregory’s sits in the part of town that was once the village of Bisqallin, before Bisqallin and Ħal Bisbut merged into the single parish we now call Żejtun. The earliest fabric of the building is medieval — there are 15th-century elements visible if you know where to look — and a major remodelling in the 17th century gave the church the cruciform plan and the modest dome it carries today. It is small, low, and humane in scale. Nothing here is trying to impress you, which is a relief after the more ambitious baroque buildings across town.

The church is closely associated with the events of the 1565 Great Siege; tradition holds that a contingent of Ottoman raiders was repulsed in or near the building, and damage from that period has been pointed to in the fabric. [LOCAL FACT — Mattew to confirm which features are currently signposted and whether the bones discovered in the 1960s along the cornice passage are still on view here or have been moved.]

The procession of the first Wednesday after Easter

The Easter Wednesday procession is the single best reason to visit St Gregory’s. The parish processes from St Catherine’s to St Gregory’s in the morning, with the parish priest, the band clubs, and a substantial crowd of parishioners. The tradition has been observed since 1614 — a span that has outlasted the Knights, Napoleon, the British, and the change of language in the parish records. The procession is not a tourist event in the sense that the festa is. It is a parish event that visitors are welcome to attend, and the right way to attend is to walk along with the crowd rather than to photograph it from in front.

What this article will cover

  • The medieval and baroque phases of the building
  • The procession of the first Wednesday after Easter — origins, route, what to expect
  • The siege tradition and what’s verifiable in the fabric
  • How St Gregory’s relates to St Catherine’s as a parish
  • Visiting practicalities — opening hours and best times of day

Read more on this pillar

Part of our History & Heritage pillar. Read alongside St Catherine’s parish church, the two villages that became Żejtun, and Żejtun in the Great Siege of 1565.

Mattew Cassar

Resident · Writer

Mattew writes zejtun.com from a flat above his grandfather’s old workshop on Triq San Girgor. He has lived in Żejtun for twenty-three of his thirty-one years.