Located at the top of Debre Bizen the mountain (2460 meters) near the town of Nefasit in Eritrea.
[1] According to Tom Killion, it remained independent of the Ethiopian Church,[2] while Richard Pankhurst states that it continued to be dependent on the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church centered in Axum.
[3] In either case, a charter survives of the Emperor Zara Yaqob in which he granted lands to Debre Bizen.
[4] The monastery was one of several habitations damaged by the Ottoman Empire in their campaigns to establish their province of Habesh Eyalet in the 16th century.
[5] When Abuna Yohannes XIV, who came from Cairo to Eritrea to serve as head of the Eritrean/ Ethiopian Church, was held for ransom at Arkiko by the local naib, the abbot of Debre Bizen helped him to escape.