Ecclesiastical archives in Malta as loci of formation

Abstract

The Church, with its unbroken tradition from antiquity, being in a certain sense the bearer of the archival practices of the classical world, has always sought, through canonical legislation, to preserve both ecclesiastical records and books of both sacred and profane nature. At the end of the Second Vatican Council, a time of renewal in the Church and upheaval in society, Pope Paul VI reminded archivists that through the Church ‘it is Christ himself who operates in time, and it is he who writes its history, so that our pieces of paper echo and trace this passage of the Lord Jesus in the world’. This dual significance of ecclesiastical archives, for the Church and for society, renders the documentation preserved in them of primary importance for the religious and lay history of the people. Ecclesiastical archives stand as witness to the specific mission of the Church to build the Kingdom of God, as well as its commitment to constructing, together with all men of goodwill, a society more respectful of man and the common good.