Patmos, a small volcanic island in the Dodecanese of the Aegean, is held in Christian tradition to be where John received the visions recorded in the Book of Revelation, and it remains a working Orthodox monastic centre.
Exile and vision
Revelation itself says that its author, John, was on Patmos "for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus", which tradition understood as exile under Roman persecution. Halfway up the hill the Cave of the Apocalypse is venerated as the place where he heard the divine voice and dictated the text, and features of the rock are pointed out to pilgrims as marks of the experience. Whether the John of Patmos is the apostle, the evangelist or another figure of that name is debated, but the island's identification with the vision is ancient and firm.
The monastery
Above the cave the fortified Monastery of St John the Theologian, founded in 1088 by the monk Christodoulos under Byzantine grant, crowns the island like a castle, its high walls built against pirates. The whitewashed town of Chora spreads below its walls. The monastery's library holds one of the most important collections of Byzantine manuscripts and documents outside the great centres, and its church and chapels are richly decorated.
A living foundation
The whole ensemble, cave, monastery and town, is a working Greek Orthodox foundation and a place of active pilgrimage, and it is a World Heritage site. Patmos has been called the Jerusalem of the Aegean, and its religious life continues as monastery and pilgrimage rather than as monument alone.