About this festa

Safi is one of Malta's smallest villages, a quiet agricultural community in the south of the island between the airport and the coast. The festa of the Conversion of St Paul in August is celebrated with the understated devotion of a place where everyone knows everyone, and the community's bond with its patron saint runs across generations. The village offers a glimpse of Maltese festa life at its most genuinely local. The Conversion of St Paul commemorates the dramatic event on the road to Damascus when Saul, a zealous persecutor of Christians, was thrown to the ground by a blinding light and heard the voice of Christ saying "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" The experience transformed him into Paul the Apostle, the most influential missionary in Christian history. This feast has particular resonance in Malta, where Paul's subsequent shipwreck brought Christianity to the islands.