Vacation in Patmos, Greece
Patmos
is the most northerly island of the Dodecanese. The islands lie strung
out, like jewels in a necklace, between Samos and Rhodes off the
south-west coast of Turkey. Patmos is where St John the Divine wrote the
Book of Revelation and is also known as the 'Jerusalem of the Aegean'.
The island has a mystical, otherworldly atmosphere, and many visitors
report having extraordinarily vivid dreams here.
In 1088, the
Emperor Alexius I Comnenus granted Patmos to St. Christodoulos, so he
could establish a monastery here in honor of St John. He chose a
spectacular site that dominates the whole island, and the Greek Orthodox
rituals still practiced here are virtually changed from the eleventh
century.
The fortified
monastery consists of a complex of buildings. Apart from the main
church, in which Christodoulos's sarcophagus can be found, the Chapel of
the Theotokos contains Byzantine frescos of the Virgin Mary which were
only discovered in 1958 as the result of an earthquake. Other treasures
are in the Library and the Treasury.
The Cave of
the Apocalypse is also a place of pilgrimage - in it St John wrote the
Book of Revelation after God spoke directly to him from a crevice in the
rock face. At the mouth of the cave is the late eleventh-century chapel
of St Anne. The nearby Patmian School was first established in
1713 as a seminary, and its students have risen to the highest ranks of
the Greek Orthodox Church.
Patmos and
the surrounding islets also have splendid secluded bays for swimming and
sunbathing far away from the crowds.
