By Helena Smith

PATMOS, Greece, May 16, 2000 (TA) — The high life is nothing new to Patmos, the Aegean island where royalty mixes with artists, David Bowie goes on walkabouts and the Aga Khan throws parties for the likes of Richard Gere.

Indeed, the holy isle — where St John reputedly wrote the Book of Revelation — has become an unlikely venue for glitz and glamor. Here, pilgrims rub shoulders with celebrities and think nothing of it.

The problem is that the taste for the good life has rubbed off on the monks of Patmos. Revelations concerning sex and money at the monastery commemorating the apostle have sent a whiff of scandal through the Orthodox church.

Prosecutors have learnt that the guardians of one of Greece’s most sacred sites preferred to live it up in villas built on filched church land. Allegations of sexual misconduct are rife, and there is the matter of missing treasures and money.

“We are all to blame,” says Mayor Matheios Melianos. “We all knew it was going on, but we didn’t dare speak. You could see the monks in the bars late at night, you could see them abandoning their duties.”

Four clerics — including the monastery’s former abbot, Bishop Isodoros, whose indulgences include a liking for luxury cars — now face criminal charges of embezzling $1.4 billion [Australian dollars] of church property. One has been defrocked and the others face indefinite suspension.

Already there are fears that the dark goings-on could spark the vision St John had of the world’s cataclysmic end.

Even in the cavern of the apocalypse, where the apostle heard the voice of God “as of a trumpet”, the monks were reportedly on the make — hiding donations under their cassocks.

“If the clerics of Patmos can’t keep their vows”, quipped one local, making the sign of the cross, “then, really, who can?”

Patmians are now waiting with bated breath to see what new revelations will come out of the criminal investigations.

http://www.orthodoxnews.com/doodad.fcgi?tcode=10&story=features5252000011631
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