The ancient catacombs that lie beneath the church are often overshadowed by Malta’s more well-known St. Paul and St. Agada catacombs. But this little gem is worth a visit.

Notably, the St. Cataldus catacombs hold one of the best examples of an agape table, a circular platform hewn out of the rock used for early Christian funerary rituals. After a body was interred, and once a year on the anniversary of the burial, relatives would gather in the catacomb for a celebratory meal to commemorate the dead.

The catacombs are accessed by a steep staircase in the church. The stairway leads to a vault that opens into the Baldachin-style tombs, where an arch in the corner is decorated with pictures of doves. Dating from the late 2nd to the 3rd centuries, these small catacombs were originally a Punic burial shaft. The graves in the catacombs are beautiful examples of canopied tombs, while many other graves are hewn in the rocks.