The life of St Makarios of Patmos
Near the cave traditionally honored as the place where the Apostle John received his Revelation, Makarios founded a school in 1713, building first a simple classroom and cells for students, which grew over time into the Patmian Ecclesiastical School, one of the most important centers of Greek learning under Ottoman rule.
He devoted the rest of his life to this work, and died in 1737, leaving the school to the care of his disciple, the monk Gerasimos. The Patmian School continued to educate generations of clergy and scholars after him. Though formally recognized as a saint only in 1994, his memory had long been honored on Patmos, where his skull is kept as a relic at the school he founded. He is a different Makarios from the later Kollyvades bishop Makarios Notaras of Corinth, who is also associated with Patmos.
