Patmos is a small island in the Dodecanese with an outsized place in the history of Christianity. On the slope between the port of Skala and the fortified monastery of Saint John the Theologian, a grotto has been venerated for centuries as the cave where John received and dictated the visions that became the Book of Revelation. The site is now enclosed within a chapel built around the rock, its natural fissures marked and framed by the devotion of generations, and it remains an active place of pilgrimage rather than a museum. Above it, the monastery dominates the island with the silhouette of a fortress, its walls raised against the pirate raids that shaped the whole Aegean. Together with the medieval Chora that surrounds it, the cave and the monastery form a UNESCO World Heritage site. The film links the three levels - harbour, cave, monastery - and gives close attention to the interior of the grotto, the chant and the pilgrims who continue to arrive.
