Għajnsielem’s St Anthony Church Rings in New Era with German-Cast Bronze Bells

**New bells to ring out over Gozo’s southern coast as St Anthony’s gets long-awaited upgrade**

The sleepy village of Għajnsielem is about to sound a lot livelier. St Anthony the Abbot parish church, whose squat limestone silhouette has watched over Mgarr Harbour since 1734, will welcome three new bronze bells this summer — the first change to its belfry since Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation year.

Cast in Passau, Germany, the bells arrived on the Gozo Channel ferry last week, escorted by a procession of altar boys, scouts and the village band. For many locals, it felt like a home-coming. “My grandfather helped hoist the old bells after the war,” says 78-year-old Toni Cauchi, leaning on the parvis wall. “Now my grand-nephews pulled the ropes to bring the new ones in. Full circle, you could say.”

The €65,000 project was financed almost entirely by parishioners: coffee-mornings, rabbit-stew fund-raisers and a marathon of €10 SMS donations during last December’s telethon. One anonymous benefactor pledged the final €8,000 after hearing the cracked tenor bell on YouTube. “In an age of direct debits, that’s Gozitan stubbornness at its finest,” laughs parish priest Fr Joseph M. Attard.

Cultural soundtrack
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Church bells are more than time-keepers in Gozo; they are the soundtrack of birth, death and everything between. When the tenor bell fractured in 2019, the village felt the silence like a missing tooth. “You wake up at six, you hear the Angelus, you know the day is decent,” explains baker Marisa Farrugia. “Without it, even the dough refused to rise.”

The new peal – a 650 kg “Maria”, 420 kg “Anthony” and 280 kg “Joseph” – will ring in the key of F-major, chosen so the harbour wind carries the sound across to Comino without clashing with the neighbouring parishes of Qala and Nadur. Sound engineers from the University of Malta spent an afternoon on the Mgarr breakwater with decibel metres, ensuring Valletta’s new skyline towers won’t drown out Gozo’s oldest voice.

Craftsmanship & continuity
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Each bell carries a Maltese inscription: the Marian antiphon “Ħail Mary, Star of the Sea” faces the ferry ramp, greeting visitors before they even dock. Around the waist, in 12-point relief, runs a verse from the Gozitan poet Dun Karm: “Fil-għaqda tiegħek, Għawdex, qalbna tferraħ” – “In your unity, Gozo, our hearts rejoice.” The clappers are threaded with olive wood from the Garden of Gethsemane, a gift from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, honouring St Anthony’s patronage of gravediggers and animals.

The bells were blessed by Bishop Anton Teuma in a rain-soaked ceremony last Saturday. Children placed rosemary sprigs – the saint’s emblem – into the foundry crates, while fishermen threw garlands of bougainvillea into the harbour, an old charm for calm seas. A drone live-streamed the event to 12,000 viewers, many of them expats in Melbourne and Toronto who still set their alarm clocks to Gozo time.

Tourism ripple
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Hotels in Mgarr report a 20 % spike in enquiries for the July consecration weekend. “People want to witness the first full peal,” says Claire Borg, manager of the Harbour View guesthouse. “We’re organising a 5 a.m. boat trip so guests can hear the bells from the water, followed by a ftira breakfast on deck.” The Gozo Tourism Association is branding the event “Bell-cation”, hoping to replicate the success of 2017’s Nadur carnival when Airbnb occupancy hit 98 %.

Youth engagement
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Crucially, the project has re-energised parish youth. A new “Bell Guard” group – 30 teenagers in reflective vests – will learn change-ringing, a British method never before attempted on Maltese soil. “It’s like learning a musical instrument that weighs half a tonne,” says 15-year-old Sven Xerri, practising on a virtual bell app. Their first performance is scheduled for the village festa on the last weekend of August, when the bells will accompany the traditional horse parade, fusing medieval sound with Gozitan pageantry.

Looking ahead
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The old cracked bell won’t be scrapped. Plans are afoot to mount it beside the church door as a fountain – a baptismal bowl for future generations. “Let the broken bell remind us that even wounded things can sing,” Fr Attard muses, as swallows wheel above the newly tuned belfry.

When the three voices finally swing into action, their bronze chorus will travel farther than any sermon: across the channel to Malta, over the strawberry fields of Kerċem, and into the open sea where Gozitans have always looked for their destiny. In a world of push notifications, the age-old command remains: listen.