This week, Marsa is en fête, ready to celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity on Sunday. Many may ask: why the Holy Trinity? What is the connection with Marsa?

It was Maria Carmela née Ozzini, wife of Lorenzo Balbi, who wanted the church that her husband was building to be dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

This is how it all started.

Balbi and his wife had expressed their desire to build a small chapel where they would eventually lay to rest. When the bishop of Malta, Mgr Pietro Pace, heard about this, he asked the couple to build a church at Marsa where the growing population had no place of worship.

At the time, the colonial government had embarked on the building of the Porto Nouvo (New Port) project, in the inner harbour area, where domestic merchandise could be unloaded or exported. This was because the Royal Navy had taken over much of the traditional landing places, like Vittoriosa and Senglea, with the Maltese merchants left without adequate harbour facilities.

For this purpose, Balbi purchased two quarries in Qrendi

These works in the late 19th and the early 20th century led to many workers from all over Malta and Gozo to settle in the Marsa basin together with their families.

Marsa was then split between many parishes, parts belonged to Ħamrun, others to Qormi and even Tarxien, but had no church of its own.

The building of a new church

Lorenzo Balbi, a merchant from Valletta, heeded the request of the bishop and started to look for land to build this church. Eventually, he bought land in the area known as Xatt il-Qwabar, which belonged to Ta’ Sawra hospital of Rabat.

He engaged the renowned architect Giovanni Domenico Debono who gave him a plan of a very different kind of church: simple, classic and attractive, inspired by the 14th-century Renaissance.

Works on the land started in August 1909 and, on Sunday, October 20, 1909, the first stone was laid at 7.30am. Master mason Mikiel Mifsud was entrusted with the building of the church.

For this purpose, Balbi purchased two quarries in Qrendi which belonged to the Ta’ Raimond family. Unique, solid granite columns were brought over from Trapani, in Sicily.

The church not meant to be given to Capuchin friars

Halfway through the building of the church, Balbi was persuaded by his friends, the clergy of St Paul’s Collegiate church of Valletta, to donate the sanctuary to the Capuchin Friars, who would better serve the community. They accepted the offer.

Balbi, thus, bought more land at the back of the church to build a convent to house the new religious community. According to the original plans, a house had already been built for the diocesan parish priest, now the parish office. The convent was eventually connected to the church by entrances at its back.

The building of the church and the convent were finished in the record time of two years and nine months, on May 25, 1912, but it took another 11 months for the church to be furnished and embellished.

Balbi paid for much of the decorations, including the titular painting of the Holy Trinity by well-known artist Lazzaro Pisani in 1910. Balbi also donated much of the required church ornaments, including silver chalices and church vestments.

It was the faith of these two benefactors that gave the locality its real identity

The set of bells by the firm Prospero Barigozzi of Milan arrived in March 1912. This was the very first set of bells to arrive in Malta from this famous bell foundry, which later on produced bells for many other Maltese and Gozitan churches, including the biggest bell of the Birkirkara basilica.

When the friars settled in the new convent, they found everything ready, including a kitchen equipped with a stone oven and all the required utensils. The rooms were fully furnished to the minutest details, such as a small candlestick and a box of matches.

Balbi nearly goes bankrupt

Balbi is said to have figuratively exclaimed that he had a bunch of grapes and with one grape he built the Marsa church. This was 1913 but, four years later, in 1917, he lost much of his wealth after having invested heavily in the Russian imperial bonds which the Bolshevists did not honour after the revolution.

The new church was declared a parish on April 12, 1913, and opened to the public a week later, on April 19, while the 24th International Eucharistic Congress was being held in Malta.

This new parish was indeed very vast, covering the inner harbour area from the Pinto Stores, il-Menqa, with the overlooking l-Għolja tal-Ġiżwiti, to Ras Ħanżir, below Kordin, going around the whole of the Marsa racecourse, l-Istabar, by Qormi, up to Ħamrun and Blata l-Bajda.

The people of Marsa and the Capuchin community are greatly indebted to Balbi and his wife.

The parish church they built gave Marsa its identity. Because even though Marsa is found on centuries-old maps of Malta and is frequently mentioned in history books, it was the faith of these two benefactors that gave Marsa its real identity.

For their pious deed, Balbi was honoured with a knighthood of the Order of San Silvester while his wife received the Pro Eclesia et Pontefice, a decoration of the Holy See, which is conferred to people for their distinguished service to the Catholic Church.

Balbi passed away on July 10, 1922. The solemn funeral cortège left from Blata l-Bajda along Via Croce Della Marsa, (Cross Road) to the new Marsa church, accompanied by the clergy and the newly formed parish, religious organisations.

His wife passed away a few months later, on October 21, 1922. They are both buried in the middle of the magnificent church they built, out of their own pockets.

Acknowledgements

The author referred to the book Il-Marsa 1913-1963 by Rev. Fr Donat Spiteri, OFM Cap.