It took five silversmiths more than a year to turn sheets of sterling silver into a tabernacle for the Nadur church.

What is different in the 70-kilo tabernacle is that it is modelled on the church's dome, the details etched into the precious material.

Nadur archpriest Fr Saviour Muscat said the idea for the tabernacle came following discussions among the priests. "We had been working on it for many years," Fr Muscat said.

The years of waiting finally paid off last week, when the tabernacle, which cost more than €51,000, arrived at the Gozo church.

Restorer Fr Charles Vella, who is originally from Nadur, made the designs and the clay moulds. The silver sheets were pressed on the moulds during hours of painstaking work to create the details.

"This was very close to heart," Fr Vella said. The tabernacle was made by the same silversmiths, Laga, that made a bas-relief of Caravaggio's The Beheading Of St John The Baptist, which was presented to Pope Benedict XVI by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi in 2007.