Canon Dun Frangisk Briffa (1862 – 1908): A short period as Archpriest        Frangisk was born in Senglea on the 11th April 1862. He grew up in Senglea and was always inclined to become a priest. He studied at the Lyceum and the Seminary and was ordained as a priest on the 19th December 1884. As a young priest he set up the Institute of Catholic Education in Senglea in 1886. He spent twelve years as Parish priest of Naxxar and than on the 24th November 1902 he was appointed as Arch priest of Senglea when he was forty two years old.

             Archpriest Briffa was renowned as a preacher whose sermons reached people in all walks of life. He saw to it that the parish had enough confessors and he himself used to spend a long time in the confessionary. The poor and the sick knew that he was always there to help them in their needs. When a child became an orphan he did all he could to find a place in an institution.

     In the church he continued the covering of the floor and of the pilasters with marble, a feat which was started by his predecessor Arch priest Tagliaferro.

     Arch priest Briffa because very ill at a very young age and was always very poorly. He succumbed to his illness on the 24th April 1908 at the age of forty six. Signs of mourning were put up on many doors and on most of the roof tops of Senglea. A solemn funeral was held on the 26th April 1908 in the Collegiate and he was buried in the middle of the church in a grave which was made specifically to bury in it the Arch priests of Senglea.

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