Sant'Onofrio Church - Salina - Municipality of Malfa

Saint Onofrio Church, located in Pollara in the Municipality of Malfa, on the Salina Island, was built in 1853. Inside it we find the statue of the Immaculate of Sant'Onofrio, some paintings dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the characteristic original floor.

The origin of the patronal cult of Sant’Onofrio has been, over the centuries, fueled by many legends, also due to the discovery of the cave where the saint lived as a hermit.

Sant'Onofrio settled in the small village of Pollara, probably before it was inhabited, living in a cave and deserving holiness with the severity of fasting and the righteousness of his life.

In fact, according to tradition, Pollara was founded around the twelfth century by a group of Calabrian farmers who colonized this portion of the island, bringing with them the cult of S. Onofrio. If this reconstruction were correct, the patron of the small Aeolian community would not be an oriental monk but a Calabrian hermit from the Vibo Valentia area.

This suggests that the memory of the oriental monk and the cult for the Calabrian Saint were overlapped giving rise to the current legend of S. Onofrio.