The Niptiras Ceremony on Patmos

The Monastery of Saint John the Theologian’s Niptiras is the public Washing of the Feet ceremony performed on Patmos on Holy Thursday, 17 April 2025, in the square beside the town hall in Chora. The monastery is the fortified eleventh-century house founded in 1088 by Saint Christodoulos on the island where John of Patmos is held to have received the Book of Revelation; together with the Cave of the Apocalypse and the medieval Chora it holds UNESCO World Heritage standing.

A procession descends from the monastery to the square, where twelve chairs are set for twelve priests representing the apostles, with a throne for the abbot and a silver basin of water before him. As the Gospel of John is read aloud and reaches the passage of the Last Supper, the abbot washes the feet of the twelve. The streets along the procession’s route are strewn with flowers. The monastery has observed the ceremony since its foundation; the public performance in Chora has continued for some four hundred years. Holy Thursday falls two days before Pascha.