Easter in Malta: Good Friday processions, seven churches and a running Risen Christ

For most British visitors, Easter means a bank holiday weekend and a lot of chocolate. In Malta it’s the most intense week of the religious year, played out in the streets as much as in church. There are also a couple of customs you won’t find anywhere else, starting with a finale at a run. Here’s how the week unfolds, where to watch and the 2027 dates.

How the week unfolds

visitmalta sets it out clearly. Holy Week and Easter are above all religious, centred on churches packed with worshippers marking the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. That fits a country where 82.6% of people called themselves Catholic in 2021, as I explain in religion in Malta. But at several key moments it spills out onto the streets.

It starts earlier than you might expect. On the Friday before Good Friday, the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows is carried in procession through Valletta and many towns and villages. In 2027 that’s 19 March, which is also St Joseph’s Day, a public holiday.

Maundy Thursday brings the seven visits, when people go round seven different churches to pray at their Altars of Repose. In Gozo, the Ministry says you can do it by car from village to village or on foot in Victoria, and that sellers outside the churches offer the Apostles’ Ring, a sweet bread ring.

On Good Friday churches are stripped of their usual decoration. In the late afternoon, towns and villages hold Passion processions with some ten statues, each showing an episode, carried on the shoulders of bearers. Between them walk people dressed as biblical characters, and many processions include men carrying a cross or dragging chains tied to their bare feet, as an act of faith or penance.

Sunday changes the mood entirely. Church bells ring out the Resurrection and, mid-morning, the statue of the Risen Christ comes out with a band playing festive tunes. At the end, the bearers clear the way and run it triumphantly back into church. It’s the moment that draws the biggest crowds.

Where to watch

There are processions in Valletta and in a huge number of villages, so you can’t really go wrong. For Sunday, visitmalta picks out the Three Cities as the most spectacular, with the Risen Christ sprinting through packed streets on the bearers’ shoulders. The cities themselves are on the Three Cities.

Qormi is another good choice. visitmalta highlights its Good Friday procession in biblical costume and the Risen Christ run at St Sebastian’s parish on Easter Sunday. More on Qormi.

In Gozo, the Ministry mentions Good Friday processions in Żebbuġ, Xagħra, Nadur and Rabat (Victoria), and the Gozo Cathedral statues, dressed in the Siculo-Spanish tradition. The island’s oldest procession leaves from St George’s Basilica in Victoria, and it doesn’t always go out on Good Friday itself; in its article on these traditions, the Ministry says that year it was held on Maundy Thursday. The town is on Victoria.

The 2027 dates and bank holidays

Good Friday 2027, a national holiday, is on 26 March. The other dates follow from it, by my own calculation. The Friday of Sorrows is the 19th, Maundy Thursday the 25th and Easter Sunday the 28th. Easter Monday isn’t a public holiday in Malta. Each parish sets its own times, so ask at the church or your hotel. And note that 31 March, a few days later, is another national holiday, Freedom Day. You’ll find all of them on Malta public holidays.

Heritage Malta shuts everything on Good Friday and opens the rest of the week. Some private museums, such as the Lascaris War Rooms, also shut on Easter Sunday.

Figolli and a family lunch

Easter Sunday means a family lunch, visits to relatives and small gifts. Children get chocolate eggs and a figolla, an almond-filled pastry shaped like a rabbit, lamb, fish or heart and covered in icing. Around Easter the bakeries are full of them.

Easter weather

Easter 2027 falls at the end of March, a spring month with a 14.1°C (57°F) mean according to the Meteorological Office, mild days and cool nights. It can surprise you, too, as Easter Sunday 2024 reached 27.9°C (82°F). For more on the month, see Malta in March. One thing not to assume is an overlap with the fireworks festival, which ran from 18 to 30 April in 2026 and has no 2027 dates yet; it has its own page, the Malta fireworks festival.