The life of St Christodoulos of Patmos
He was tonsured a monk on Mount Olympus in 1043, taking the name Christodoulos, and some years later made a pilgrimage to the holy places of Palestine, where he spent time at the Monastery of Saint Sabbas before returning to Asia Minor to pursue monastic life in a series of communities, eventually becoming abbot of a monastery on Mount Latros. When raids forced his community to flee, he and his monks settled for a time on the island of Kos.
There Christodoulos conceived a longing to restore monastic life on the nearby island of Patmos, traditionally honored as the place where the Apostle John received his revelation, and in 1088 he obtained the emperor's permission to found a monastery there. He built the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on a fortified height above the island, and wrote a rule for its common life. Renewed raids in his final years forced him to leave Patmos for the island of Euboea, where he died in 1093; his disciples later returned his relics to the monastery he had founded.
