PATMOS păt’ məs (Πάτμος, G4253). Island off the coast of Asia Minor, about thirty-five m. SW of Miletus.

Patmos is a mountainous island of irregular outline, measuring approximately six by ten m. There are contrasting views as to its character. On the one hand, it was described as being dry and desolate, and it served as a place of banishment during the Rom. empire. On the other hand, it is said that during the ascendancy of the Venetians it was so cultivated that the Italians of the Middle Ages called it Palmosa—island of palms. Ancient sources raise the possibility that the island originally was covered with terebinth. Was it, then, once rich in trees, which were cut down, leaving it bare and relatively waterless?

The early history of the island is obscure, in spite of some topographical remarks in ancient authors. Not until the Christian era did Patmos assume an important historical role, esp. in the religious sphere. Its privileged position has been compared with that of Delos in ancient times. It was to this place that John was banished by the emperor Domitian, and here he received his vision and wrote the Apocalypse (Rev 1:9-11). Because of this there rested upon the island a sort of religious aura throughout late Roman and Byzantine times, despite the fact that it was attacked and depopulated by pirates.

A new period in the history of Patmos began in 1088 when the monk Christodulos built St. John’s Cloister on the site of the old temple of Artemis. As time passed, monasteries and churches proliferated, and the monks were devoted to the cultivation of learning. A fine library was assembled. Patmos was a bulwark of Gr. orthodoxy, but after 1453 had to seek help from the papacy in Rome against the Turks. In the 16th cent. it came under Turkish rule, but enjoyed the freedom of self-administration under guarantee of the Sultan. In 1832 the island fell under Turkish dominion; after 1912 it belonged to the Italian Dodecanese; and in 1947 it was ceded to Greece.

Bibliography Pauly-Wissova, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, XVIII₄, 2174-2191.