Guest Post by: Bridget Staroscik O’Reilly
When I arrived on the island of Patmos in October it was quiet. I had missed the biggest part of the tourist season, and we landed rather early in the day but it just seemed to me like a calm and peaceful place. The ship docked in the Greek city of Skala which is known as “the city of Patmos” because it offers the most private and public services of any area on the island. The morning I was there I saw only a small ‘everything’ sort of store where one could buy water or postcards open most everything else was closed. Just a note: buy water there before the hike.
The main thing to see on Patmos from a historical prospective is the Cavern of the Apocalypse where St. John wrote the book of Revelations. Given the importance of John’s work, later citizens of Patmos had built a Byzantine monastery of Saint John above the cavern where John lived while writing the Book of Revelations.
Once we arrived at the monastery, (Quite a hike up a very tall hill) I understood that one of the reasons the town was so quiet was because most of the citizens where there celebrating conveyance of St Thomas’ relics which is celebrated at the Monastery in the Cavern of the Apocalypse (http://www.sacred-destinations.com/greece/patmos-cave-of-apocalypse)on October 6.
Seeing the views from the Monastery up on the hill where beauty seemed to flow evenly in each direction. I couldn’t help but feel confused by the choice of place. Patmos is a beautiful and very peaceful Island. When we were there, the weather
was nice with just a touch of a breeze. Patmos seemed like perfect place to retire and run a B& B or move into a light airy building with lots of light and perhaps paint or try your hand at writing poetry of a lighter sort.
John the Apostle did none of these things. Instead when John landed on this peaceful quiet island located in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, he found himself a quiet cave and wrote the Book of Revelations. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he had been exiled here for his beliefs and even a beautiful prison is still a prison. Or maybe it was just that God wasn’t finished with him yet and so he sat in his dark cave a most fitting setting and wrote what he had foreseen.
Still it’s almost hard to comprehend how there in his cave on this peaceful island with its bright sunshine and casual breezes. John sat down and wrote couplets about the end of days:
“The seals are opened and God’s judgments begin falling on the earth. Jesus Christ rides out at the head of the armies of heaven to do battle with the earth. Trumpet after trumpet will sound, vial after vial will be poured out upon the inhabitants of the earth.
A large earthquake demolishes many of the world’s cities and a great hailstorm wreaks additional havoc.”
Guest Post by: Bridget Staroscik O’Reilly
