While the whole country, Ethiopia celebrates the finding of the True Cross on (September 26th & 27th), the commemoration of the deposition of the right arm of the True Cross at the remote mountain monastery of Gishen Mariam (in the present Sothern Wollo Zone, Amhara Region), makes the celebration there especially colorful. The occasion is observed with the largest and most spectacular intensity on October 1st each year In the middle Ages, the Patriarch of Alexandria gave the Ethiopian Emperor Dawit half of the True Cross in return for the protection offered to the Coptic Christians. A fragment of the True Cross is reputed to be held at the Gishen Maryam monastery, about 70 kilometers of Dessie.