A tale of two churches

Some time ago I had turned my attention to the plight of two churches of tremendous historical, architectural and artistic importance. The first was the church, or rather, chapel of St John The Evangelist in Hal Millieri and the other was the great landmark that dominates the entrance to the Three Villages area, the parish church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord in Lija.

To date there has been a dense and impenetrable blanket of silence in the press despite the fact that not a day has passed without an average of three people literally stopping me in the street to tell me how right I was to point out the vandalistic attack on the former and the insensitive "restoration" of the latter.

These informants also have let me know that the vandals of the Hal-Millieri chapel were under age and that their parents have agreed to pay for the chapel's restoration themselves, which is a very laudable move on their part. Naturally this is a rumour that I hope, for once, is true.

Regarding the strange position of Lija church, the rumours are rather more conflicting. I did receive, in the post, a very detailed report from the architects' firm that undertook the work explaining why and wherefore the clean-up was carried out and that attempted to justify the result that nobody I have come across in the past weeks actually approves of.

Naturally I passed on this report to Din l-Art Helwa, which, as our National Trust, is in a much better and authoritative position than I will ever be to address the impasse that has resulted.

I have it on good authority that Mepa has stopped any further work on Lija church. Ergo we have a façade that all Malta may examine at its leisure; one side "restored" as if built yesterday and the other side in its original "patinated" condition.

I have also been informed, en passant, that Heritage Malta and the Superintendence are involved in discussions with the church as to what to do next.

All this is mere conjecture and rumour!

I am bringing all this up again not because I have run out of subject matter, fear not, but because I am sick and tired of the time-honoured Maltese method that buries all controversial issues in a miasma of murky subconsciousness with the result that the interested parties in the name of being pragmatic will end up by doing what they set out to do in the first place. This is what is inexorably ruining our country.

I abhor being patronised and so should you. Mhux fl-interess tal-poplu (It's not in the people's interest) is an attitude that is very much alive today as it was in the 1980s when this tag became a hallmark of resistance. The church at Hal-Millieri and the Lija parish church belong to you and me as much as to anyone else. They form part of our common heritage and we all have every right to protest should we feel that this heritage is being jeopardised in any way.

This is precisely why it is imperative that a public statement is made straightaway.

If all the parents in Malta with children with an over-enthusiastic artistic bent that might lead to these kids defacing historical buildings know that they may have to pay for the restoration of the desecrated building they may get it into their heads that these talents should be channelled correctly. Should other parish churches in Malta and Gozo get to know that Lija parish has overstepped the mark and that the Church in Malta is, in fact, answerable, they may think twice before embarking on some misguided restoration project in future.

It is only by setting an example that we may be able to preserve our heritage for future generations and put a full stop to the wholesale destruction we have complacently witnessed with such lackadaisical apathy for all these years.

Think of the hundreds of country chapels that enhance our countryside (what's left of it), think of all the chapels in our towns and villages. As their original purpose has been superseded due to lack of vocations, they lie abandoned and empty, many of them falling to pieces. Can we sit back and let this happen?

Think of the unique Tal-Provvidenza chapel, near Siggiewi, with its unique octagonal shape and its exquisite baroque portico immortalised by great architects like Sir Basil Spence; its entire ambience has been ruined by the siting of some industrial plant within feet of it!

The lovely convex façade of the church of Our Lady of the Angels in Zebbug; a dump! Take a good look at your own hometown and its architectural gems and let us all congratulate ourselves as to how we could possibly either have lost them to so-called progress or allowed them to fall into ruin.

To add insult to injury, when a restoration project is under way we are so disinterested and uninformed as to how it is undertaken that the result is the sorry state of Lija church today.

While our economy depends on tourism and we are happy building gin palaces to accommodate them, we are eradicating the only asset that it is worth visiting Malta for, our history and heritage; that is, unless there actually are hordes of people who get a kick out of swimming in polluted seas and sunbathing on shrinking strips of sand with more rubbish than Maghtab! I doubt it.

Well, with a government hell bent on siting a landfill cheek by jowl with a World Heritage site who can really be surprised?