Patmos is holy to Christians. It’s the island where the exiled St John the Evangelist had the transformative visions recorded in the Book of Revelation, one of the most influential and enigmatic documents of apocalyptic literature. Yet Patmos, which has been declared a Unesco World Heritage Site, owes its survival to a lesser-known figure of the Orthodox faith, St Christodoulos. Angela Waldron looks at the life of the monk known as ‘the wonderworker of Patmos’ and describes the overwhelming experience of a visit to the Monastery of St John that he founded.
Patmos, a small island on the northern rim of the Dodecanese group, straddles several shipping routes linking the Greek mainland, the Cyclades, Crete, Rhodes, and the Asia Minor coast. In antiquity, it was intimately connected to the Asia Minor littoral of Greek cities such as Miletus and Ephesus–and, indeed, was for some time considered a “fortress of Miletus”. The island’s terrain and shore are pocked by hills, rocky outcrops, scrub, and inlets. With land that even in the best of growing seasons only produces two months of food a year, but a coastline of deep, sheltered harbors and anchorages, it’s logical that the island’s inhabitants sought to make their living from maritime trade. Shipping became Patmos’s lifeline to the world at large, bringing necessary provisions and trade goods in exchange for Patmian pottery, yarn, and the island’s finely knitted hose, a handicraft in high demand in medieval Europe. But its suitability for maritime activities also attracted pirates whose presence led most inhabitants to flee so that from the seventh century, Patmos was virtually deserted. The island languished until Christodoulos arrived in the early eleventh century; over time, the local economy expanded to include the monastery–today, nearly every inhabitant is connected to it–and income from various metochia (landholdings or dependencies) and a thriving tourist economy, religious and secular.
In the Roman era, Patmos was one of a handful of Greek islands that had the dubious distinction of being a dumping ground for political and religious exiles from throughout the empire. One of these was St John. An apostle and intimate of Jesus, he was banished to serve out the penalty of the perceived transgressions against Rome and emperor worship. En route to exile on Patmos, John miraculously saved a man who had been washed overboard; the deed went unrewarded and he was escorted to the island in chains with his disciple Prochoros. The choice of Patmos was cruel punishment: imagine John’s torment, in exile yet within sight and close proximity to the mainland and the seven churches of Asia Minor. But to paraphrase Nietzsche, instead of destroying John, exile made him stronger and, one might argue, more perceptive to God. It’s said that during his stay, John converted almost all of the island’s inhabitants to Christianity, baptizing them in a font near the harbor. A notable exception was Kynops, a local magician, who drowned after his confrontation with John; according to local lore, an odd shaped rock rising in Petra Bay is his petrified body.
After the death of the Roman Emperor Domitian in 97 CE, John returned to Ephesus, where he lived for some years caring for the Virgin Mary as he had promised until his death. Prochoros returned to Nicomedia before suffering a martyr’s death in Antioch.
Christodoulos arrived on Patmos not as punishment but as reward. Like many other early Christian saints, his beginnings are not well-documented; he was born in the early eleventh century in Nicaea, in the Bithynian province of Asia Minor. His parents, Theodore and Anna, named him John. They were peasants but devout. He took his monastic views as a youth, assuming the name ‘Christodoulos’, which means servant of Christ in Greek.
Christodoulos’s boundless energy fed his insatiable intellectual and spiritual curiosity. He drew respect from the religious and secular circles for his solid judgment and love of education. Despite his peripatetic ways, he was at heart a hermit prone to bouts of seclusion in between founding monasteries and churches throughout Asia Minor and Greece, in particular the Greek island of Kos, where he founded a monastery and a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary of Kastrinos, (modern day Paleopyli). In addition to all this, Christodoulos also found time to pilgrimage to the holy cities of Rome and Jerusalem.
While on Kos, Christodoulos became friends with a wealthy landowning anchorite named Arsenios Skinouris. A Patmos native, Skinouris had established two cells on Kos and lived in a monastery on Mount Dikeon (near Paleopyli). He found a kindred spirit in Christodoulos and became his disciple, ceding his land on Patmos to Christodoulos in exchange for founding a monastery there dedicated to St John. Christodoulos agreed. “My ardent desire was to possess this island at the edge of the world, for there were no people, all was tranquility, no boats dropped anchor here,” Christodoulos wrote.
After traveling to Constantinople for an audience with the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos, Christodoulos arrived on Patmos in 1088. In his audience with the emperor he had succeeded in being granted the entire island–by some accounts thanks, in part, to the intervention of the emperor’s mother–in exchange for Skinouris’s other properties. Along with the emperor’s permission to build a monastery on the island, Christodoulos was also granted tax-free status for it and unlimited use of a monastery ship.
Arriving on Patmos with his entourage from Kos, Christodoulos set about to organize the monastery’s construction. Soon after, he’s said to have performed a miracle: turning a pirate ship headed for the island into stone by praying to god for protection. (The rock outcrop is known today as Petrokaravo, literally stone ship).
Monastery documents suggest “an enormous church” dating from the fourth century once stood on the summit of the hill where Christodoulos decided to build and was incorporated into the monastery’s main church or katholikon. According to local tradition, Christodoulos built the monastery over a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis, in the process destroying a beloved statute of the goddess that was the temple’s pride and joy, but leaving her stone altar (which is visible today in the katholikon).
Christodoulos oversaw the monastery’s construction for four years, during which period the master craftsmen employed by Christodoulos were settled within the compound’s walls, allowed to return home to their families only on weekends. But in 1092, unrelenting waves of incursions by Turkish pirates forced Christodoulos and his followers to flee. The ‘wonderworker of Patmos’ retired to the island of Evia until his death the following year.
There are two approaches to the Monastery of St John from Skala, the port that sits in the shadow of the massive fortified monastic compound. By road or on foot over the Byzantine-era footpath that winds up the hill past the complex of the Patmian School and the Cave of the Apocalypse, where St John made his home after being exiled from Ephesus by Domitian for proselytizing.
The small chapel of St Anne founded by Christodoulos occupies the southern hillside against the northern opening of the cave. Here, in the yawning maw of the grotto, on a Sunday, St John experienced the powerful vision sent by an angel from God, whose voice, “like the sound of a trumpet”, issued from the Trinitarian, a fissure in the stone ceiling, commanding him to write. John dictated his cryptic visions to his disciple Prochoros, resulting in Revelation, that canonical opus of eschatological literature written in the Old Testament tradition of Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, and the controversial last book of the Bible outlining the fate of the world and the triumph of Christianity over evil. Unique to the New Testament for its apocalyptic message and conceived in a time of crisis, Revelation exhorts the faithful in the struggle between good and evil and was originally intended as a missive to the congregations of the seven churches in nearby Asia Minor, written in veiled language by a persecuted member of their own enjoining them to keep faith in times of trial and persecution.
The grotto today serves as a small church. Its interior is decorated with late-twelfth-century frescoes and a carved, beautifully painted iconostasis dating from 1600. Two rare panels painted by the sixteenth-century Cretan icon painter Thomas Vathas depict St. John, Prochorus, and St. Christodoulos. Its original occupant’s asceticism has been preserved: there’s little else inside the cave other than the cross he carved into the rock, his headrest (sheathed in silver), his rock handhold, and his rock desk. Two windows reveal a bucolic landscape of terraced fields, ancient stone walls, venerable olive trees, and farmers busy harvesting hay, loading it onto horse-drawn carts–a scene as timeless and evocative as a painting, only it’s real.
Visiting the grotto, you soon realize that Patmos exists on two planes–the physical and the spiritual realm long cherished in the Christian mystic tradition. After two millennia, the grotto retains its status as a powerful place of worship–and it is evident this is no ordinary cave. For centuries the humility and devotion of countless pilgrims has infused the landscape, allowing the receptive aspirant to capture the wonder, mystery, and evocative sense of place virtually untouched since John’s time. What happened here was made manifest, with momentous implications that shaped the way we think about and interpret our relationship with God and life, the world, and the hereafter. Even those who arrive knowing nothing about the island’s or the monastery’s history or do not embrace the Christian faith cannot help but be affected by the place in some way.
Once inside the twilight dimness of the grotto, we sit on a wooden bench contemplating the Trinitarian. We’re alone, except for the grotto’s elderly caretaker and a sole woman pilgrim. We sit, just being in the moment, absorbing as if by osmosis the palpable energy current that flows around us and seems to crackle in intensity as it envelopes us in a warm embrace. Lulled by the meditative silence of deep reflection, time appears to stand still: our only link to the outside world is the sound of cicadas coming through the window. Suddenly, it’s as if reality has been suspended as wave upon wave of tremors coursed through my body; tears fill my eyes and I’m forced to take deep breaths as each emotional crescendo rises and peaks. Then, as mysteriously as it began, it’s over. For one unforgettable moment, a portal into the spiritual realm had opened and I had been able to experience my own wordless vision of God’s omniscience, capturing, ever so briefly, the very essence of Patmian mysticism.
It’s in this state of reverie and awe that we continue up the Byzantine path from the holy grotto to the monastery. Contained within the fortified walls are the medieval village of Chora, a maze of winding cobblestone alleyways, cul de sacs, and vaulted passages wrapped around the monastic compound. From every angle, the monastery’s fifteen-meter high polygonal walls are an obvious reminder of its imposing invincibility, both as a monastery and as a fortress, as evidenced by its balcony above the main gate where boiling oil was poured onto invaders. The monastery has undergone many different expansions and renovations and is a virtual labyrinth of cells, chambers, halls, and chapels with centuries-old icons and frescos covering nearly every surface. One of the ten chapels within the complex is dedicated to the Agioi Apostoloi, or saint apostles and it houses the relic of the monastery’s founder, Christodoulos. His holy relics were brought to the island in 1093 by Christodoulos’s disciples and are kept in a magnificent silver reliquary that allows one to touch his relics through a small grille box and absorb their miraculous healing powers. His saint’s Day falls on March 16 and the Feast of the Transfer of his Holy Relics is celebrated on October 21.
The saint’s relics are not the monastery’s only holdings. The Monastery of St John has an impressive collection of ecclesiastical art–a veritable treasure trove of icons, reliquaries, ecclesiastical vestments, rare sacred books, historical documents, and manuscripts. The most important icon, no doubt, is that of St John which was donated to the monastery by Christodoulos’s patron, the Emperor Komnenos. The icon is displayed in an ornate silver frame.
The monastery’s collection of holy relics is kept under lock and key in a room accessible only by an elderly caretaker. While the chains of St John aren’t displayed anywhere visible but there is still plenty to be perused in the room–the silver gilt skull of the Apostle Thomas, the chains of St Timothy, the silver arm relic of Gerisam of Byzantium, and the relics of Sts Steven the Younger and James the Persian, among others.
The library, also a Christodoulos creation, is the Aegean’s second most important ecclesiastic collection outside of Mount Athos. Christodoulos’s passion for manuscripts resulted in his issuing monastery guidelines to collect, copy, and preserve them. Upon his death, he bequeathed his private collection to the library as evidenced in the first catalogue of the library’s holding dating from 1200 and later, updated versions documenting many important donations over the centuries. The most important document is the original chyrsobull transferring the land ownership to Christodoulos, signed by the emperor in what looks like dried blood but is actually cinnabar.
As the Monastery of St John houses an active male monastic community, the public’s access to the complex is limited to the katholikon, library museum, and a handful of other areas like the chapels and refectory. The latter, with its massive wooden trough for kneading the monks’ bread, offers a rare glimpse into the day to day life of the monastic community. The monastery is especially crowded on May 8 and September 26, the feast days of St. John. Otherwise, visitors are tolerated but not shown any particular attention other than to make sure all abide by the rules.
It may seem a bit odd, but after the intensity of the cave the monastery no longer held such awe or grandeur for me. It became more the human-constructed defense edifice it is–a temple built in honor of John, the omniscience of God, and the triumph of Christianity. After a day or two on the island, the very presence of the monastery made me feel as if I should be on my best behavior–it just seems to instill in one a combination of respect, morality, awe and self-censorship. I could not help but think of the analogy of the monastery as the all-seeing eye of the island.