Timkat is Epiphany, and in Ethiopia it commemorates the baptism of Christ rather than the Magi. The processions in Gondar and Addis Ababa draw hundreds of thousands, and the eve is spent outdoors around the tabot with chanting through the night. The tabot itself is never seen: it is wrapped in embroidered cloth and carried on a priest's head. Because it is the tabot and not the priest that the crowd follows, Timkat is the clearest public statement of what the church means by a church.