Our Lady of Pilar at the Presidents Palace
in Attard

The Chapel of Our Lady of Pilar was built by Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena in the 18th century. It consists of a barrel-vaulted nave, with ribs dividing the ceiling into six bays. The vault is decorated with the coats of arms of de Vilhena, and subsequent Grand Masters Manuel Pinto da Fonseca and Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc. The altar is set within a chancel separated from the nave by pilasters.

Our Lady of the Pillar  is the name given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the context of the traditional belief that Mary, while living in Jerusalem, supernaturally appeared to the Apostle James the Greater in AD 40 while he was preaching in what is now Spain. Those who adhere to this belief consider this appearance to be the only recorded instance of Mary exhibiting the mystical phenomenon of bilocation. Among Catholics, it is also considered the first Marian apparition, and unique because it happened while Mary was still living on Earth.

This title is also associated with a wooden image commemorating the apparition, which is now enshrined at the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. Pope Callixtus III granted indulgences for visitors to the shrine in 1456. Pope Innocent XIII in 1730 mandated her veneration throughout the Spanish Empire. On 20 May 1905, Pope Pius X granted the image a canonical coronation.

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