St Helen's Basilica is a church in Birkirkara

Birkirkara

Birkirkara or B'Kara is a city of 25,858 inhabitants in central Malta. It is the most populated town on the island and consists of four autonomous parishes: St Helen, St Joseph, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St Mary. It also houses one of the most famous colleges in Malta, St Aloysius' College...

, Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

. Birkirkara is one of the ten Maltese parish

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

es which existed in 1436, the year of the Rollo drawn up by the bishop of Malta, Senatore Mello. The parish was dedicated to St Helen, and this was also the titular saint of the church built in the 18th century and still existing today. The church became a collegiate church

Collegiate church

In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons; a non-monastic, or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, which may be presided over by a dean or provost...

 in 1630, and a Minor Basilica

Minor basilica

Minor basilica is a title given to some Roman Catholic churches. By canon law no Catholic church can be honoured with the title of basilica unless by apostolic grant or from immemorial custom....

on the 18th January 1950.