Aegean Journey: The Cave of the Apocalypse, Patmos

The island of Patmos is the location, where St John the Divine (Aghios Ionanis Theogolos in Greek) is reputed to have written the Book of Revalation also known as the Apocalypse, the ultimate section of the Bible, around 90-100 AD.

A Monastry now stands on the site of the 'cave' where he is believed to have lived and written his vision of the the end of the world, containing a museum with many exhibits and gifts from world leaders through the ages. One of the most interesting of which is the deed granting the site to the monastry written on purple velum, issued by the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I Comnenus.

The cave (entrance above), were it not for the walls enclosing it, would be more accurately described as rocky overhang on the steep hillside affording only a little shelter from the elements. At its deepest point there is a ledge which it is claimed St John used as a bed, however even the the most devout would have to be sceptical about this. Surely even saints are subject to the law of gravity, the ledge is at such a steep angle that, unless he had some sort of harness strapping him to the rocks, he would have woken up every morning at the bottom of the hill!

Whether St John the Divine was the same John as John the Apostle, which would mean that he must have been very old , or a separate individual, as most modern scholars believe, he had been exiled here by the Roman Emperor Domitian. Patmos, as a place of exile, is not like Siberia in fact it is difficult to understand how St John had such dark visions in such as pleasant locale - the picture to the right is the view from the outside of his cave!