GISHEN MONASTERY

Along with Dabra Damo, the Gishen monastery is one of the most venerated in Ethiopia. Founded, according to legend, in the^5th century under King Khaleb, it is most famous for the important relics it houses. From Dessié, it takes about a day to get there and visit the site. The beauty of the site and the original shape of the Gishen plateau flanked by four sanctuaries, three of which are symbolically erected to the north, south and west, following the layout of Ethiopian church doors, justify the excursion. According to tradition, it was in the ^14th century, during the reign of King Dawit (1379-1413), that important relics arrived in Ethiopia, including a fragment of the true cross, probably from Constantinople, where it had been brought from Jerusalem by Queen Helena. At the time, there was a festival in this city celebrating the cross, which is undoubtedly the origin of the Ethiopian festival of Masqal, which attracts thousands of pilgrims here every year. King Zara Yaqob (1434-1468), son of Dawit, searched long and hard for the ideal place to house the precious artifacts, eventually choosing the amba (tabular plateau) of Gishen, predestined by its cruciform topography. Locked away in four successive caskets of iron, bronze, silver and gold, the fragment of the cross has rested to this day in a twenty-metre-deep shaft, hidden from view, beneath the Egziaber Ab church. Along with the Ark of the Covenant, this myth constitutes the second great enigma of the sacred possessions claimed by the Ethiopian Church.