One cannot explain the fact that there are so many churches in a small island such as Malta, if not by consenting that the Maltese are a very religious people. It is said that there are over 360 churches and wayside chapels all over the island and it is practically possible (though not probable) to go to a different church every day for a whole year!

The religious devotion of the Maltese is no new phenomenon. There are so many prehistoric temples (some of which at a very short distance to each other) that some archaeologists believe that Malta was some sort of sacred island where different groups of people used to come here, perform their cult rituals and leave to their respective places of origin afterwards.

The principal deity which controlled the lives of these prehistoric clans was the so-called ‘goddess of fertility’. Statues and pottery statuettes of this deity have been found in various temples not only in Malta but also in other places in the Mediterranean region.

The structure of the temples themselves resemble the shape of this goddess which must have been seen as the provider of food and the sustainer of life. It was quite customary that a conquered people would start worshipping the gods of the conquering nation. So the Maltese followed a normal pattern from those days when they started to worship the Roman idols when they found themselves under their new conquerors during the Second Punic War.