As you approach the church from St George’s Square, you notice its huge bronze portals. They were installed in 2004 to commemorate the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 that launched the third Christian millennium, and were designed by Gozitan artist John Grima and cast at Fonderia Bonvicini of Verona. The Christian community that gathers here felt that there was no better way to commemorate the beginning of the third Christian millennium than by adorning the principal door of its church with the imagery of Christ who said: “I am the Door of salvation”. In fact, topping the portals there are the Latin words Porta Salutis, meaning that the door into the church represents Christ who is the Door… the gate or passage into the saving presence of God.

The present church, the first one in Gozo in the shape of a Latin cross, was ready by 1678, built on designs by renowned Maltese architect Vittorio Cassar. However, following several earthquakes, the façade was rebuilt in 1818 in neo-Classical style and with the addition of two belfries, which house a beautiful set of five bells cast in bronze by Fonderia Barigozzi of Milan in 1925. In the late 1930s two side aisles were added to the original structure; a statue of the Immaculate Conception and another one of St Joseph, made by Alfred Camilleri Cauchi in 1992, were added to the sides of the façade.