The Patmos Paradigm

One hundred billion years in the future, another empire discovers the Patmos, which is the complete history of humanity, good and bad. Upon the private viewing, the resident gods declare it too dangerous. The Patmos has within it material that, when viewed, could release the Knowledge of Evil, a concept that could, like a virus, destroy their universe. Likewise, this small Patmos ball is composed of complete atoms, as they could destroy millions of stars. Their governing council sends the Patmos through a series of wormholes to other dimensions. They also call back all their giant space worlds, as ships are a far-distant memory, if another Patmos was somehow dispatched. Life in the Patmos witnessed the chosen earthlings and viewed the earth as it passed through the Great Tribulation, where humanity is rendered extinct. They survived World War III in which the Eagle, Dragon, and Bear die, allowing a silent monster to recreate an old empire and rule the world. He begins his genocide, sparing Israel, which he gives a nice new temple, only to betray them. His empire suffers through twenty-one judgments, which leaves those with his mark doomed as he loses both the physical and spiritual last war and gets a kick from the archangel Michael for the bottomless pit, as the journey for the victors is only beginning.

One hundred billion years in the future, another empire discovers the Patmos, which is the complete history of humanity, good and bad. Upon the private viewing, the resident gods declare it too dangerous. The Patmos has within it material that, when viewed, could release the Knowledge of Evil, a concept that could, like a virus, destroy their universe. Likewise, this small Patmos ball is composed of complete atoms, as they could destroy millions of stars. Their governing council sends the Patmos through a series of wormholes to other dimensions. They also call back all their giant space worlds, as ships are a far-distant memory, if another Patmos was somehow dispatched. Life in the Patmos witnessed the chosen earthlings and viewed the earth as it passed through the Great Tribulation, where humanity is rendered extinct. They survived World War III in which the Eagle, Dragon, and Bear die, allowing a silent monster to recreate an old empire and rule the world. He begins his genocide, sparing Israel, which he gives a nice new temple, only to betray them. His empire suffers through twenty-one judgments, which leaves those with his mark doomed as he loses both the physical and spiritual last war and gets a kick from the archangel Michael for the bottomless pit, as the journey for the victors is only beginning.

* A riveting cross-cultural analysis of imperial myths and their subversion * Color images of contemporary murals showing the power of the la Guadalupena in Chicana/o imagination and resistance today

Two major historical events have led to Patmos being called 'the holy island of the Aegean'. The first is the arrival there in A.D. 95 of the Evangelist, Saint John the Theologian, who wrote the Book of Revelation on the island; and the second is the foundation in 1088, at the beginning of the second millenium of the Christian era, of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian by the monk Christodoulos, armed with three chrysobulls from the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Comnenos. During the nine centuries of its life, the Monastery on Patmos has assembled and preserved many precious treasures of art and culture, and, along with the Patmian School, it has supplied the Orthodox Church with patriarchs and other enlightened prelates, and the State and the intellectual world with distinguished personalities. Patmos, Treasures of the Monastery contains chapters on the various kinds of works of art housed in the Monastery from the Byzantine and modern Greek popular traditions, and also on the rare manuscripts and valuable editions in the Library, the richest in the Aegean. These chapters, each lavishly illustrated, deal with the architecture of the fortress-like complex of the Monastery, the outstanding wall paintings and icons, the masterpieces of gold-embroidery and church silver, the exquisite miniatures in the manuscripts, and the other treasures in the Library and the archive.