Cyclades
Islands
: Amorgos, Andros,
Folegandros, Ios,
Kea, Kythnos,
Milos, Mykonos,
Naxos, Paros
and Antiparos, Santorini,
Sifnos, Serifos,
Sikinos, Syros,
Tinos
Northern
Aegean Islands:
Chios, Ikaria,
Limnos, Lesvos,
Samos, Samothraki,
Thassos
Ionian
Islands:
Corfu (Kerkyra), Ithaki,
Kefalonia, Kythera,
Lefkada, Paxos,
Zakynthos
Saronic
Islands:
Aegina, Angistri,
Poros, Hydra,
Salamina, Spetsis
Sporades
Islands:
Alonissos, Skiathos,
Skopelos, Skyros
Dodecanese
Islands:
Astypalia, Halki,
Kalymnos, Karpathos,
Kassos, Kastellorizo,
Kos, Leros,
Nisyros, Patmos,
Rhodes, Symi,
Tilos
Other
Islands:
Crete, Evia,
Cyprus
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Dodecanese Islands - Patmos
Patmos is an arid, volcanic island once popular among
pirates because of its many deep natural harbors. Patmos
is basically arc-shaped, with three deeply indented headlands
joined by two narrow isthmuses, a common
shape in the Greek isles. It was probably the site
of a giant volcanic eruption; its semicircle of islets,
taken with Patmos, form what may be the caldera of a huge
volcano. If this happened, it was during prehistoric times.
It was the site of St. John’s Revelations during
the saint’s exile here, and today the famous Monastery
of St. John is located where John was believed to have
lived. Today if you visit the Monastery, you can see 800
year old paintings revealed in an earthquake fifty years
ago, when frescos covering them were destroyed.
According to local traditions in Patmos, John was in
a grotto halfway down the hill from the monastery when
God spoke to him, revealing his Revelations through three
cracks in the ceiling when John was resting his head on
the floor. The monastery was founded in the 11th century
by St. Christodoulos, and houses not only priceless paintings
and icons, but also one of the best collections of historical
Christian documents in the world. The library contains
some three thousand antique books, a thousand of them
handwritten between the sixth and eighteenth centuries.
Patmos is dominated by the monastery, and it is indeed
a treasure of the Christian world, but you should not
miss its other treasures. An ancient acropolis lies on
the northern isthmus, and
the town of Khora offers hospitable and friendly people.
Patmos was successively settled by Dorians
and Ionians, but received little mention by ancient
writers, and was known as a place of exile; this suggests
that it was at best a backwater sort of area at that time,
unlike today. Patmos’s most famous exile, of course,
was St. John. During the Middle Ages, Patmos was deserted,
probably due to Saracen raids. The island was granted
to an abbot in 1088 by the Byzantine emperor; this abbot
founded the monastery still standing on the island and
began its library.
Grapes, cereals, and vegetables
grow in the arid and inhospitable soil of Patmos, but
not enough to supply the needs of its people. Tourism
is the main source of wealth for the island. Patmos has
historically been popular in this way; many of the paintings
done in the past of St. John have been set in the barren
terrain of Patmos.
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