When visiting one of the hundreds of churches and quaint chapels dotted across the island, most feel a sense of peace and safety.
‘What could possibly happen to me in a place of sanctuary?’ you might ask. Well, you could get robbed.
Official figures that Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela has tabled in Parliament reveal that 27 thefts were reported in churches last year alone.
The vast majority of the thefts, 18, targeted visitors, who reported that mobile phones, wallets, cameras and smaller personal effects like sunglasses and backpacks had been stolen.
It wasn’t only visitors that were falling prey to thieves, but even the historic sites themselves.
Mr Abela told Parliament there had been nine thefts of items from churches in 2016, including historical, religious artefacts. He was replying to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Anthony Agius Decelis.
Just last month, this newspaper reported that two teenage brothers had stolen church bells from a chapel in Għaxaq. Clyde and Mario Mallia, 18 and 19, committed the aggravated theft and were both handed a suspended prison sentence and condemned to pay a fine.
The young men pleaded guilty to having stolen the bells from the chapel of Santu Kristu and to having caused damage to cultural property.
According to crime historian Eddie Attard, one of the first recorded church thefts on the island was from the church at Bir Miftuħ, in the limits of Gudja.
On January 24, 1663, Domenico Bugeja, the sacristan, found that the tabernacle’s door had been forced open and the ciborium containing the consecrated hosts was missing. A wooden box containing about two scudi was also found missing. At the time, the parish priest of Gudja reported the matter to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, he said.
A further look back at the history books shows that the first church theft since 1800, which is often referred to as the more modern historical crime data by historians, was committed by Francesco Mariano, who stole the silver suspended oil lamp from the St Publius church in Floriana in 1802.
While the thief was in prison awaiting his trial, Mariano volunteered to act as an executioner in exchange for his freedom.