Is THIS the "hallmark of change"?
Monday 30th October 2006: a fellow traveller tells me that one of the monks in the monastery of the Orthodox Church of St John the Evangelist, the monastery built as great fortress to protect the holy treasures that belong there, has explained to her that the gesture of bringing together the thumb and first two fingers creates a symbol of the Trinity. The monk, who was also an American citizen and spoke perfect English, further explained that the great fissure in the roof of the cave of St John below the monastery occurred according to tradition at the moment (in AD 95) when he received the Revelations that were written down by his scribe and became the last book of the Bible. The fissure, the monk pointed out, divides into a flattened Y at its outer end, making the shape of three fingers, and thereby signifying the Trinity. 
The question already posed: ‘ What does it mean to say that a place underwent a change from being pagan to being Christian, or from being Christian to being Muslim?’
I confess that when I first saw the flattened Y at the end of the fissure emerging from the cave, my eyes saw the cleft in the rock as the thighs and pelvis, the sex of a mighty ancient Goddess. Then I also saw that the chapel in which I was standing, built alongside the cave of St John, was dedicated to Anne, the Mother of God.
Later in history, in the sixteenth century Patmos and the Monastery of St John fell under the control of the Ottomans, another change, but the Ottoman rulers did not disturb the dominion of the Orthodox Church over the island, and respected the great Christrian shrine. But then I also reflect that the coat of arms of the Ottomans, three crescent moons, is again reminiscent of the shape of thumb and first two fingers brought together.
mmj