Dome

Iconostasis, view of an icon (The Virgin with Child), depicting silver halos; Patmos is the northernmost island of the Dodecanese, Greece, with an area of 39 sq. km. According to tradition, St John the Theologian (or Evangelist) wrote his Gospel and Revelations while in exile on the island. Its recorded history begins in 1088, when Emperor Alexios Komnenos (reg 1081-1118) ceded it to the Blessed Christodoulos (d 1093), who in the following year began to build a monastery dedicated to St John on the site of an Early Christian basilica. The monastery became the centre of a miniature state comprising Patmos, Leipsoi, Askioi and part of Leros. Population was expanded by infusions of Byzantine immigrants fleeing the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and Cretan immigrants fleeing the fall of Chandakas (Crete) in 1669. The island was controlled by the Ottoman Empire for many years, but it enjoyed certain privileges, mostly related to tax-free trade by the monastery (as certified by numerous Ottoman imperial documents held in the Library). Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 7/17/2008)