To commemorate the 450th anniversary from the foundation of the first Confraternity of the Holy Rosary in the Dominican church of the Annunciation of Vittoriosa, the mitre of Pope St Pius V was brought over from the papal basilica of St Mary Major in Rome. 

The Dominican pope St Pius V has deep historical affinities with Malta, being in a particular way a great benefactor of Malta’s Capital City, Valletta. 

The Maltese Dominican Province, whose patron is St Pius V, holds special ties with the saintly pope since by a decree issued on July 2, 1571, he appointed the prior of the Dominican priory of the Annunciation in Vittoriosa, Fr Damian Taliana OP, as the first parish priest of Valletta’s first parish dedicated to Our Lady of Safe Harbour. 

On the other hand, St Pius V is the founder of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, after he attributed the 1571 Christian victory in Lepanto to the prayer of the rosary. 

The devotion towards Our Lady of the Rosary has a long history at the Dominican church of the Annunciation in Vittoriosa, dating back to 1540, where an altar is already found dedicated to the rosary along with another in the Dominican church of Rabat.

Only a short while after the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, in the Dominican church of Vittoriosa, two bequests made to the Confraternity of the Rosary of the Annunciation church of Vittoriosa are found, which attest to the existence of the confraternity already at least by 1571.

A solemn pontifical mass for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary will be presided by Mgr Archbishop Alessandro d’Errico, Apostolic Nuntio to Malta and Libya on Sunday at 10am at the Dominican church of the Annunciation in Vittoriosa.

In the evening, solemn vespers will commence at 6.30pm, followed by a eucharistic blessing and the reposition of the relic. Then, at 7.30pm, a musical concert, given by the residential choir Princeps Melitae under the directorship of Mro Stephen Camilleri and organised by the confraternity, will be held outside the Dominican church in Main Gate Street, Vittoriosa.