AN ISLAND WITH 300 CHURCHES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 183, 16 June 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN ISLAND WITH 300 CHURCHES.

Of deep interest in the eyes of most or us is a little island, not much mom than a hundred miles from Milos. This. Js the isle called Patnios, ever a saered •spot to the Christian pilgrim. Patnios has (says the "Sunday at Homo") an entirely (ireek population of v 400",) mostly sponge fisherand although in close proximity to Turkey, no 'i .rks dwell on tlie island, and no mosque h is ever been erected whore John was in the spirit on the Lord's day. The only export from Patnios, according to an old geographer who visited the island a hundred years ago, was at that timo cotton stockings, which wore sent to \ enice. The same authority adds that there were 300 churches on the island, which, seeing that the numlner ot" dwelling houses was only <OO, suggest* a rather handsome surplus of places of worship. The monastery in which John s name is perpetuated is a massive building flanked by towers like .1 fortress, and the visitor is shown inevitably the grotto 011 the mountain in which it is claimed that John wrote his. book Over the grotto a small church has been erected. The isolation of the island gfves a pnthet'e "'nteivst to John s description of ihe li.eavenlv Jerusalem when there should bo "no more sea."