{"id":6427,"date":"2022-09-30T05:11:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T05:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/?p=6427"},"modified":"2022-09-30T05:16:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T05:16:00","slug":"gishen-mariam-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/gishen-mariam-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Gishen Mariam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gishen Mariam<\/strong><\/p>\n

September 30, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

The home of the light of life, the sign of peace and the world\u2019s mark of salvation \u2018Holy Cross\u2019 Gishen, is the hope for Ethiopian Christians who also travel to the holy place found in northwest of Dessie, Wollo in seeking of mercy and blessing on September 21. The portion of the Holy Cross was placed in the Church of \u2018Egiziabehr Ab\u2019 by Emperor Zar\u2019a Ya\u2019 eqob.<\/p>\n

Zar\u2019a Ya\u2019eqob was the youngest son of Dawit II (1380-1412) and while was receiving a monastic education, several other family members had short reigns, until 1434 when Zar\u2019a became king. One of the first issues\u00a0Zar\u2019a had to deal with was a dispute known as the Sabbath Schism. Monks in northern Ethiopia held that both Saturday, Sunday were the Sabbath, and had a long list of prohibitions of what could not be done on either day. Meanwhile, the monks and religious community in the south (and the Egyptian head of the church) only believed that Sunday was the Sabbath. While previous emperors tried\u00a0(without success) to arrange for a compromise between these two factions,\u00a0Zar\u2019a Ya\u2019eqob unilaterally declared the two-day Sabbath to be the official position of the church and ordered priests to work on both Saturdays and Sundays.<\/p>\n

According to Tefut, a massive volume\u00a0dating\u00a0from the 15th<\/sup> Century which records the detailed story of the acquisition of a fragment of the True Cross by Ethiopia. The Christian Kings of Ethiopia were often called upon in the early Middle Ages to protect Egyptian Copts against the Egyptian Muslims. In return for this delivery from Muslim persecution, fabulous gifts of precious gold were offered to Ethiopian Emperor Dawit. He rejected these offerings and asked instead for four pieces of the True Cross, which were under the custody of the Patriarch of Alexandria. The request was granted and the pieces brought to Ethiopia. They were guarded on the journey by torchbearers and then deposited in a church at Gishen, in northern Wollo dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Rejoicing followed throughout the whole country and the Emperor ordered that the capes of the priests be embroidered with flowers. Since that day, Ethiopian Christians are believed to have commemorated the occasion\u00a0with flaming torches and huge bonfires.<\/p>\n

Emperor Dawit fourth son, Zar\u2019a Ya\u2019eqob, succeeded him as Emperor and, when he was a very old man, dreamt that God ordered him to a place the cross upon a cross. Zar\u2019a Ya\u2019eqob spent two years in abstinence, searching in seclusion, and at last discovered a mountain shaped like a cross. There he built the beautiful church of Egziabher Ab, and a fragment of the True Cross was kept within a gold box in the church. The priests of Gishen still safeguard this treasure along with the Tefut which is handwritten in Geez on beautiful parchment.<\/p>\n

At the cross shaped mountain Debre Gishen, there are also found three other churches known to be Gishen Maryam, Saint Gabriel and Saint Michael. On the blessed day, 21st<\/sup> of the first month of the year, we also commemorate the feast of Saint Mary\u2019s Church inaugural of its Divine Liturgy.<\/p>\n

May God grant us mercy and blessing upon the Holiday, Amen!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The home of the light of life, the sign of peace and the world\u2019s mark of salvation \u2018Holy Cross\u2019 Gishen, is the hope for Ethiopian Christians who also travel to the holy place found in northwest of Dessie, Wollo in seeking of mercy and blessing on September 21. The portion of the Holy Cross was placed in the Church of \u2018Egiziabehr Ab\u2019 by Emperor Zar\u2019a Ya\u2019 eqob.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feasts","category-holy-scriptures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6430,"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions\/6430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}