PATMOS - An island of the Aegean in the Sporades group south of Samos and west of Miletus. Of volcanic origin, it measures at most 12.5 km in length and has a maximum width of 5 km; it extends between 37° 19' north latitude and 26° 34' east longitude. The aridity of the rocky soil allows only a sparse population (ca. 3,000 inhabitants).
Politically, P. followed the fate of the other Sporades; until 1948 it was part of the Dodecanese ceded to Italy by Turkey (1912); now it has passed to Greece.
The island is mentioned incidentally by ancient authors (cf. Pliny, Hist. nat., IV, 23; Strabo, X, 5, 13), but its fame is due to the fact that it housed St. John the Evangelist (q.v.) for several years, where (Rev 1:9) he received the revelations described in the Apocalypse. Already St. Irenaeus (Adversus haereses, V, 30, 3: PG 7, 1207) assigns the event to the final years (A.D. 96) of the emperor Domitian.
Ceded in 1888 by Alexios I Komnenos to the monk Christodoulos, the latter founded there the monastery of St. John, which soon became a center of monastic life. The chapel is rich in splendid icons and frescoes depicting scenes from the life of St. John; the sacristy preserves precious furnishings, vestments, and jewels; the library: imperial diplomas, bulls, subscriptions, codices, e.g.: the monastery’s Gospel of St. Mark on purple parchment, with letters in silver and gold; the discourses of St. Gregory Nazianzen to priests, transcribed by two Calabrian monks and donated by Alexios I Komnenos to Christodoulos; the book of Job (7th cent.), illuminated Gospels (11th cent.); the litoria or parchment scrolls containing the Byzantine liturgy or that of St. John Chrysostom.