Despite Covid19, also returns in 2020 the millennial Fiera dell’Assunta at the’Abbey of Santa Maria di Ronzano (Town of Castel Castagna) where a wooden cross-reliquary is kept, according to local tradition, it contains a fragment of the True Cross found by a farmer intent on plowing the surrounding land with his oxen.
A story of the local elders, attributes a passage to the abbey of Santa Maria di Ronzano to Sant’Elena Imperatrice and the personal donation of the relic, then dispersed and later found in the countryside by kneeling oxen. The Saint, mother of Constantine early converted to Christianity and protagonist of the finding of the True Cross in Jerusalem between 326 and the 328, he brought a portion back to the West, according to sources, giving rise to a consequent scattering of fragments in many places in Christianity.
On the day of the Assumption of Mary, children are taken to church to receive special protection from the Cross, while the square in front is filled with animals, rides and stalls for the ancient fair of livestock and local agricultural products.
In the past, the exposition of the relic, accompanied by the sign of the cross and the kiss of the stauroteca, it was intended to consecrate and protect all children born in the last year; today it is extended to children of different ages. The ritual use of the cross also finds its reason in the reliquary itself, enriched with apotropaic formulas of probable magical character placed on the red carnelian set in the covering.