Saint Paul’s Catacombs and Grotto

St Paul’s Catacombs MAP P.66 Triq Sant Agata, Rabat ,☎️📞2145 4547, 💻heritagemalta.org. Daily 9am—5pm. 5€

Rabat’s main sight, St Paul’s Catacombs, date back to the time when Rabat was part of Mdina ane early Christians buried their dead outside the city walls. This dark maze of burial chambers, dug in the fourth and fifth centuries, offers the earliest archaeological evidence of Christianity in Malta. Althougt small compared to Rome’s catacombs, the site offers a good example of Maltese underground architecture, a wholly unique development that was barely influenced by outside traditions, A visit begins at the excellent visitor centre, which offers a brief introduction to burial traditions and artefacts as well as a short film. Cross the street to enter the underground complex, which first presents two large halls. An interesting feature of the catacombs found here is the Agape table, likely used in funerary rituals where a final meal was shared between living and deceased. amospheric lighting propel you forward through the labyrinthine passageways. A number of different erraced levels cover an area of over two thousand square metres, and more than a thousand sarcophagi scupying every conceivable space.

St Paut’s Church,
Wignacourt Museum
and Grotto
wignacourimuseum.com. Daily 9.30am© for the three sites; audioguide €2.

Rabats town square is dominated by § Paul’s Church, which stands on a site where a church is known to have existed since 1372 (though the present Baroque building dates from 1653). Designed by Francesco Buonamici (who introduced Baroque architecture to Malta), it has an unusually wide, squat facade. For a church with such a lengthy history, the interior is surprisingly bare and bland. The adjoining Wignacourt Museum presents a series of liturgical artefacts and religious paintings.

St Paul’s grotto is said to have been the hiding place of the saint during his three-month stint in Malta in 60 CE while awaiting his transfer to Rome to stand trial. It’s a small, damp and dull place, but its saintly association made this a pilgrimage site during the Knights time. More recently, Pope Jean “ Paul II and Pope Benedict have both made a point of praying here during their visits to Malta, but today the site is more popular with tour groups than with pilgrims. With Doubling back to the cave’s entrance, staircases descend into a labyrinth of third-century Roman catacombs (sadly looted over the centuries and quite devoid of artefacts) and World War II air-raid shelters. The latter boast more than hifty rooms that were hand dug to provide wartime refuge.