She also dedicated one of the crosses fashioned from the original crosses of the two thieves placing a piece of the True Cross in the center of it, as well as one of the Holy Nails.
The history of the Monastery of the Holy Cross up until the tenth century is unfortunately not known to us. The Monastery is first referred to in 1092 by Anna Comnena, the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Comnenos(1081-1118). Shortly after this, in 1106 AD, the Monastery was visited by a Russian Orthodox Archimandrite, Abbot Daniel, in the course of his pilgrimage to the Christian East. Abbot Daniel said " The Cross is suspended in mid air, without being supported from the ground by any means." .
The renowned Cypriot St Neophytos the Recluse (1134 - 1219), the founder of the well-known Monastery named after him in Paphos, also refers to the Monastery of the Holy Cross. He refers to a divine vision which indicated to him the Monastery of the Holy Cross on Stavrovouni as being par excellence location for the veneration of the Cross on Cyprus, something which confirms the authenticity of the piece of the True Cross situated in the Monastery. .
The Monastery in its present condition, despite the manifest additions and repairs of subsequent periods, is a construction of the Byzantine period dateable to the tenth century.
There is no clear reference to the early church's transformation into a Monastery, but this can be inferred. The lack of such references is attributed to the fact that the extant sources center their attention on the relics of the place, but there must have been monks there to guard them. The Monastery, however, was extremely small, on account of the narrowness and rocky nature of the site, and above all due to the lack of a water source, factors which precluded the development of a large monastic edifice housing numerous monks. Because of this it did not give the impression of one of the usual magnificent Byzantine monasteries.