Greece: Patmos and the Greek Islands

We boarded a cruise ship the morning of June 1 for a 2 night cruise including stops in Patmos, Crete, and the beautiful volcanic island of Santorini.

 First stop...

Patmos

Roman Emperor Domitian, no friend of Christians, exiled the Apostle John to Patmos in 95AD where John received and dictated the Book of Revelation.

Entrance to the cave where John received the Revelation

We learned some really interesting things about the life of John and specifically asked "How do we know that THIS cave (or any cave for that matter) is where John received the Revelation of Jesus Christ?"

Our guide taught us a bit about people in the Bible who are not talked about as much as others.  The Book of Acts Chapter 6 describes how the 12 disciples were being stretched thin and all the work that needed to be done was not getting done.  So, 7 more were elected to serve alongside the original 12 disciples.  The most famous of these 7 was Stephen who was stoned in Jerusalem as one of the first martyrs of the Christian faith (while Saul watched and encouraged the persecution).  But what of the other 6?

Acts 6:5 reads "And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch."  We learned on this day that the man named Prochorus ended up serving with John for the rest of John's life and was with him in exile on Patmos.  Prochorus wrote a book about John's life and that is where we get the information about what happened on Patmos.  It was an eyewitness account and this cave is the only cave on the island...

View from the cave to the town of Scala where John lived while on Patmos

The cave.... (the building has been built up and around the lip of the cave which is seen here)

 The natural table in the cave where John wrote down what was dictated to him...

They call this the pillow of John as it is most likely where he would have slept in the cave...

Tradition has it that three fissures opened in this rock as Jesus Christ spoke to John.  One crack is coming toward the camera to the right.  A similar one is heading off to the left and there is one heading toward the back of the cave.  The 3 fissures meet in the middle and represent the Trinity.

We asked questions about John's 18 months on Patmos as it has never been very clear to me whether he was in prison, under guard etc.  Our guide explained that he was an old man at the time and the Roman Empire basically confined him to an island in the middle of nowhere where he could no longer be effective in his ministry.  Ironically, the island was inhabited and he stayed in a small place in the port city of Scala.  The island inhabitants worshiped the pagan Goddess Artemis but by the time John headed back to Ephesus in 97AD, the entire island had converted to Christianity.  He was able to leave because Domitian was assassinated and the next emperor was Christian friendly.

So, John wasn't in prison while he was on Patmos, though there was a Roman outpost on the island.  They basically just tried to neutralize his effectiveness by getting him away from Ephesus.  That also helped me understand how the letter of Revelation got off the island and to the 7 churches mentioned.  I always wondered how that happened if he was under Roman guard etc.  Now I know and for me this trip to Patmos was most informative and interesting!

St. John Monastery

This monastery is at the highest point of the island...

View of the full island from the monastery...

The Book of Mark dated from the late 400s.  The parchment is some sort of animal skin that would have been very expensive.  So the scribe left no spaces between words to save space...

The other fascinating document in the museum portion of the monastery was a long deed for ownership of the entire island given to the monk who started the monastery.  The deed was signed by the Byzantine Emperor of the time.

But to AJ, Patmos was a playground (as is the rest of the world...)

Heading back to the ship...

Crete

We really didn't do much on Crete other than get off the boat so we could say we had been in Crete and find a playground with a castle in the background.  It was a fun hour....

Santorini

The last thing we did on our cruise was visit the island of Santorini.  If you have ever seen pictures of Greece with the little white houses and the ocean all around, the pictures were probably from this island.  We had no expectations as we headed to the island....

....when we got there we had ONE OF THE BEST EXPERIENCES of our trip.  We rode donkey "taxis" up the steep cliffs to the top of the island.

And Rachel rode in the first annual "Mary Memorial Donkey Ride" (for pregnant ladies only!.... )

Isn't she a cutie?

As you can see, these donkeys have some serious climbing to do!  Rachel and I had donkeys that refused to move near the bottom of the hill as the girls were on motivated donkeys who went up the hill much faster.  Finally, one of the trainers came up behind us and once the donkeys heard the trainer they miraculously moved all the way up the hill (weaving back and forth) without stopping.

The girls were waiting for us a long time at the top as our donkeys were really slow at the bottom...

Smoothies and a gorgeous view at the top....

Fun shops with 'no hassle' owners (a nice change!)

The "taxis" on their way home after a hard day's work....

Picture from the ship once we got back.  The volcanic explosion that created this island must have been massive as it literally is like the island just rose straight out of the water.  The cliffs are VERY steep and drop off on all sides.  Someone thought to put a town up there and I'm glad they did as it was really a beautiful place to visit.

Next message will be about our travels to Athens and Corinth.  Til then, God Bless!

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