page_title: St. Catherine's Old Church, Żejtun
section_title: Rebuilding and enlargement
hierarchical_section_title: St. Catherine's Old Church, Żejtun / History / Rebuilding and enlargement
caption_attribution_description: English: The nave of the chapel of St Gregory in Zejtun
context_page_description: St. Catherine's Old Church, also known as St. Gregory's Church, is a Roman Catholic church in Żejtun. The church and its complex sit towards the outskirts of the town, commanding views over Marsascala Bay, St. Thomas' Bay and Marsaxlokk harbour. The church is colloquially known as Saint Gregory's due to a traditional procession held on the first Wednesday following Easter Sunday. Its dedication to Catherine of Alexandria dates back to an original chapel on this site, which was one of the eight mother churches on Malta. The church stands next to the three cemeteries of Żejtun, dedicated to St. Rocco, St. Gregory and St. Catherine. The church's functions as the parish church of Żejtun were taken over by a new parish church, also dedicated to St. Catherine, and designed by Lorenzo Gafà.
  The present day church was built on the site of an older 15th century chapel, also dedicated to St. Catherine, along with an adjacent private chapel dedicated to St. Mark and St. Jacob. Late medieval texts prove that the church became a landmark for seafarers. Over the years, the chapel was restructured and enlarged, with the demolition of the adjacent private chapel.
context_section_description: The original chapel remained in use until 1492, when it was rebuilt and enlarged. This was commemorated by an inscription, which has since been lost. The Maltese historian Gian Francesco Abela noted how the church was rebuilt, quoting this inscription in his writings. The same inscription was repeated by A. Ferris in 1866 and E.B. Vella in 1927. While there is a faded and partial Latin inscription in the dome, this reads differently from the one reported in other sources.  According to this later inscription, the church was enlarged in 1606 during the episcopate of Bishop Gargallo, and the office of archpriest M. Burlo. This further enlargement must have consisted in the addition of a transept vaulted with a true Gothic quadripartite vault, which is an unusual feature in Maltese churches. The church also has a sizable parvis.
  Using information from the apostolic visit by Mgr. Pietro Dusina in 1575, Gian Francesco Abela noted how the Cathedral precentor drew around 500 scudi in annual income from the lands belonging to St. Catherine's Old Church.
  According to a number of inscriptions, the bosses of the arches' intersections in the rib-groins were erected in 1593 and 1603 respectively. With the addition of the transept, this was the first church in Malta to be given the form of a latin cross. With the crossing of the main axis of the enlarged church, and the construction of a new transept, a dome was probably erected in 1606, the date in the dome inscription. The dome is low and saucer-like in shape, and is probably one of the earliest examples still in existence in Malta.
  The main façade has a Renaissance doorway, with flanked by a set of pilasters crowned by an architrave, a cornice and a circular oculus in the masonry above. A small bell-cot, probably added later and constructed out of reused stones, rests on the gable, which straightens out on each side with a low parapet wall. Both the transept and the parapet walls are buttressed externally. The buttresses on the nave walls were added in the 19th century, and were the design of Giuseppe Hyzler. The buttress supporting the transept's walls, however, is larger and far older - giving the eastern side of the church the appearance of a fortress.
  In fact, the church was used as part of the defences of the Hospitaller Knights of St. John the Baptist against the Ottoman Turks. The new transept, nearly a third higher than the nave, provided commanding views of the nearby bays. High within the walls of the transept, a corridor was inserted with windows lined up on the sites of two new low lying forts, which were to be built at St. Thomas, Marsascala, and St. Lucian in Marsaxlokk. Hence, St. Catherine's old church became an intermediate military signalling point, forewarning Mdina, Cottonera and Valletta about any attack by Ottoman navy ships entering these nearby ports.
caption: Nave with true Gothic quadripartite vault at St. Catherine's Old Church.[18]
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