Christodoulos of Patmos

Saint Christodoulos of Patmos, also called Christodoulos the Wonderworker or Christodoulos of Latros, was a monk of the eleventh century and the founder of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on the island of Patmos. He is honoured above all in Greece and is commemorated on 16 March. The Greeks also commemorate him on 21 October.

He was born around 1021 at Nicaea in Bithynia. While still young he became a monk and soon after an abbot. He lived on Mount Latmos in Caria, where he first founded a monastery with a library. According to some sources he was abbot from 1075 to 1087 of the Stylos lavra on Latmos, founded by Paul of Latros. The patriarch of Constantinople, Cosmas I the Jerusalemite, appointed him protos of Latmos, against the custom by which precedence belonged to the monastery of Kellibara. He was accused of heresy and spent ten years in lawsuits before the Patriarchate.

In 1088 he received from the emperor Alexios Komnenos, as a gift, the island of Patmos, to build there a monastery in honour of Saint John the Evangelist. The Greek tradition places the building of the monastery in 1079, with the emperor's help, and says it is still called the Monastery of Christodoulos.

Because of the raids of robbers, and according to the Greek tradition of the Arabs, Christodoulos was forced to leave Patmos. According to tradition he withdrew to Euboea, where he fell asleep in the Lord. The year of his death is given variously, as 1093 or 1101 in the Greek sources and around 1111 in others. His relics were brought back to Patmos, and the shrine stands in the chapel that bears his name, in the monastery of Saint John the Theologian.