The Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception of Tarxien is 350 years old.
When the parish church of Tarxien was being built in 1614, a certain Dijonisju Calleja offered to pay for all the expenses to build a chapel inside the church to be dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.
He was given permission to do so by Bishop Baldassare Cagliares. The chapel was completed by 1621. From 1622 onwards a group of men from Tarxien, who were devotees of the Immaculate Conception, started to meet in the chapel to say prayers during some weekdays or on Saturdays.
The parish priest of that time noted that this group of men should be given the status of a ‘fratellanza’ (confraternity). On December 12, 1668, Bishop Lorenzo Astiria issued a decree that the group of men who used to meet in the chapel should be called the ‘Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady’.
This year, 2018, happens to be the 350th anniversary of the setting up of this confraternity. Our parish of Tarxien is commemorating this event by organising a pilgrimage in the form of a procession with the statue of the Immaculate Conception (sculpted by Carlo Darmanin in 1870) around some streets of Tarxien after celebrating a High Mass at the parish church.
We thank the Almighty God and Our Lady under the title of the Immaculate Conception for all the graces showered on all the members of our confraternity throughout these 350 years.