The Greek Orthodox Church in Malta after 1530

Abstract

It is well known that the Church in Malta from around the mid-VIIIth century, and certainly till the Arab invasion of 869 A.D., belonged to the Byzantine Church. It has been argued in the recent publications, that even if the devastation wrought in Malta by the Arabs may have meant an ethnic, and consequently also a religious, break with pre-869, there need not have been an identical development on the smaller island of Gozo. It is certainly established there that, when Roger II invaded these islands in 1127, he discovered an existing Christian community which, together with its ‘Bishop’, had been labouring under a hateful regime. Further evidence has been found that even after the Norman occupation there remained a Greek Christian presence on the islands. The Greek Church received a further boost in 1530 with the arrival of some 500 Rhodiots to Malta with the Knights of Saint John.