Fr Tarcisio Agius of Żabbar, first parish priest of Marsascala

The arrival of St Anne’s statue 75 years ago coincides with Fr Agius’s death 56 years ago.

Fr Tarcisio Agius, the youngest of the 14 children of Carmelo Agius of Lija and Felicita Agius (née Muscat) of Żurrieq, was born in Żabbar on May 5, 1914. He was baptised by Fr Salvatore Gatt, vice parish priest of Żabbar, on May 7, 1914 and received the names Espedito, Stephen, Gratio and Crescentius.

Fr Tarcisio Agius chiselling the first groove into the rough wood that would became the statue of St Anne.

Gatt would eventually become parish priest of Marsaxlokk in 1926 and, later, when Agius was ordained, Gatt would gift Agius a precious statue of Our Lady of Pompei.

Agius received his elementary education in Żabbar. His sister, Annie was his teacher and used to tell young Tarcisio not to call her by her first name at school. The prime of his youth was spent at the minor seminary and, then, at the major seminary.

The Church authorities acknowledged Agius’s vocation and so he started to receive minor orders and then major orders: first the subdiaconate, then the diaconate on  September 19, 1936 and, finally, his ordination on July 25, 1937 by Michael Gonzi, then bishop of Gozo. Agius said...