We have walked among giants, to use a phrase rightly used to honour those who have left a lasting legacy in their field. Even though he would disagree, it is most fitting for Lorenzo Zahra, who like a father received me when I sheepishly walked into the archive of the archdiocese of Malta for the first time, having freshly arrived from my studies in Rome, proud that my superiors had just assigned to me to take care of the Diocesan Archive.
These archives, the fruit of five centuries of hardworking men at the service of the Church, needed no taking care of. They were well cared for by this loving figure, a kind of nonno to all at the Curia, who, with Mgr Joseph Busuttil, Canon Bonello, and many others, had meticulously overseen their placement at the Curia once the archives had been transferred from its centuries-long abode in the Archbishop’s Palace in Valletta to the Casa degli Esercizi della Madonna di Manresa in Floriana.
Lorenzo, on that day, in his humility, arose from his desk as I walked in. He invited me to sit in his chair. “This is your place now,” he said, to which, of course, I declined. We then went around the Curia seeking a desk and chair for me to set up at the other end of the archives hall. For him, this must have been a moment of reassurance; his legacy and that of many others who had struggled before him, he felt, were somewhat secure.
I asked him what I was to do, and he wisely replied: “Open up box by box, get to know them”. For him, it was an opportunity to introduce me to friends, as it were. His was not a clinical approach to these papers, as is often for us nowadays, but the fatherly care of a good steward who knew well that it was his responsibility to preserve as much as he could of a world that was fast vanishing, in responsibility to those who were yet to come. This is the man I got to know over the next few years.
Generations of students struggling with their thesis, curious researchers, and seasoned historians will remain indebted to his generous guidance
Firstly, he was a man of indubitable faith. It was in his love for the Church that his care for its cultural patrimony, in whatever form, was rooted. In these scraps of papers, he indeed saw what St Paul VI called the traces of the transitus Domini in history. Well-nourished in his youth by the teachings of St George Preca in the MUSEUM, Lorenzo’s faith was the foundation of his lifelong dedicated and indefectible service to the Church.
As a proud native of Vittoriosa, his love for his city and St Lawrence, whose name he proudly bore, knew no limits. Founder in 1954 of the Socjetà Storiko-Kulturali Vittoriosa, he sought out anything that was somewhat connected to his people, took note and treasured every scrap of paper that referred Vittoriosa, and sought out all that somewhat recorded the memory of a bygone age, a glorious time before the devastation of World War II, when the Arloġġ tower still dominated its main square. In 1990, on the presumed ninth centenary of the parish’s foundation, he founded the parish museum in the Oratory of St Joseph to preserve all that he had collected, which he revered as relics to the memory of his people.
As a man of encyclopedic knowledge, he happily recounted how, during his breaks from his job at the power station in Marsa, he would go up to the Biblioteca Nazionale in Valletta as often as he could to nourish his love for the history of this land. A valuable assistant to Mgr Philip Calleja, who recognised his talents, he first assisted him as curator at St John’s Co-Cathedral, well before any restoration project was on the horizon. Lorenzo would proudly recount how he saved a bench or some other precious artefacts from destruction. Surely, great clerics like Mgr Calleja set the foundations for appreciating this and other such ecclesiastical monuments. But we are also indebted to such humble men who supported them in selfless service.
As a lover of tradition, Lorenzo was a member of Valletta’s centuries-old confraternities. As if trying the daunting task to save, through his presence and that of friends dear to him, institutions that first came forth in Hospitaller Malta and had survived the turmoil of centuries, and sadly seeing that they would not survive the rush of contemporary life, he sought to preserve the memory of those who had laboured within them, honouring God through their prayer, sacrifice and generous foundation. He took care by safeguarding their archives, drawing up the inventories of many a dusty series of volumes, often abandoned in some oratory sacristy cabinet. His detailed lists, in his unmistakable handwriting, are now an integral part of these archives.
He selflessly sought to preserve the existence of many such institutions, being among the last members of the Sodality of Souls of Valletta, of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception at the Franciscan Conventuals, and of the still flourishing Confraternity of Our Lady of Charity at St Paul’s Shipwreck church in Valletta. He was also among the last members of the Congregation of the Onorati, who, as long as they could, preserved in existence a congregation dating back to the foundation of the Collegium Melitense by the Jesuits, keeping their tradition of mass in Latin and later Italian, in their oratory at the Jesuits’ church.
It was Mgr Calleja who first introduced him to the Archivum Archiepiscopale Melitae to assist with the sorting of a mountain of papers that had accompanied the translocation of the Archbishop’s Curia from Valletta to Floriana. There, in the silence of the archives, broken only by his cassettes playing out his beloved marċi tal-festa, Lorenzo, together with Mgr Joseph Busuttil, embarked on the momentous task of organising a mountain of fascicoli that had for centuries lingered in sacks in the Curia’s remissi.
Opening a volume or box at the Diocesan Archive is difficult without encountering Lorenzo’s invaluable inventory list. He proudly told me how he would stay after hours when the finance offices had closed to sort out rooms of ledgers and books, essentially preserving them from destruction.
He was, above all, a man generous with all. Generations of students struggling with their thesis, curious researchers, and seasoned historians will remain indebted to his generous guidance, just as they remain to Mgr John Azzopardi in Mdina. Lorenzo and Mgr Azzopardi allowed all to be nourished by their seemingly unlimited knowledge of Maltese history and art.
As I took my first staggering steps among our papers at Floriana, any research question on my part would indubitably start with: “Lorenzo, have you ever seen anything on this?” Lorenzo would pause momentarily, as if to refresh his memory, and indisputably point you to the document you sought. Even a decade into my work at the Curia, I still often think that if Lorenzo were here, he would know where this information we seek is to be found.
Coming to the Curia was, in those days, coming home to family. Every institution has to grow, and today’s world demands professionalism and expertise that were maybe not required for great institutions to survive in simpler days. A decade ago, there were still men working at the Curia who knew the years of war, the hopeful conciliar years, and who had struggled to defend the Church when it was misunderstood.
Lorenzo was one such lover of Church tradition, one might say, of living tradition, which is the life of the Church. Tradition was the very foundation and expression of who he was. He was a man of humble service, a simple man devoted to his superiors. He would eagerly wait for the chancellor to come to the office for the day so that he would bring him, with his rattling moving trolley, his mid-morning coffee with two biskuttini, preserved in a jug, just for the Monsinjur.
Only the need to assist his wife in a retirement home pushed Lorenzo into giving up his daily routines between Marsa, Floriana and Vittoriosa. He was now in his early 90s and still came daily to the archive, ready to assist and guide all who came within its walls. He never sought any honours, and when the archdiocese of Malta sought to honour him, close to his retirement at 92, with the merited medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontefice, he humbly told me: “Ma kellekx għalfejn!”
This was indeed very little to thank a man who had generously given his life to preserving these islands’ cultural patrimony and, above all, in selfless service to the Holy Mother Church, till the very end. It remains incumbent on us to continue the legacy of such dedicated archivists and lovers of Church tradition, for it is a debt we owe to those who are still to come.