The shrine of S. Theodosia was famed for miraculous cures. Her horn of plenty was filled with gifts of healing. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, according to Stephen of Novgorod, or on Mondays and Fridays, according to another pilgrim, the relics of the saint were carried in procession and laid upon sick and impotent folk.[278] Those were days of high festival. All the approaches to the church were packed with men and women eager to witness the wonders performed. Patients representing almost every complaint to which human flesh is heir filled the court. Gifts of oil and money poured into the treasury; the church was a blaze of lighted tapers; the prayers were long; the chanting was loud. Meanwhile the sufferers were borne one after another to the sacred relics, 'and whoever was sick,' says the devout Stephen, 'was healed.' So profound was the impression caused by one of these cures in 1306, that Pachymeres[279] considered it his duty, as the historian of his day, to record the wonder; and his example may be followed to furnish an illustration of the beliefs and usages which bulked largely in the religious life witnessed in the churches of Byzantine Constantinople. At the time referred to there dwelt in the city a deaf-mute, a well-known object of charity who supported himself by petty services in benevolent households. While thus employed by a family that resided near the church of the Holy Apostles, the poor man one night saw S. Theodosia in a dream, and heard her command to repair with tapers and incense to the church dedicated to her honour. Next morning the deaf-mute made his friends understand what had occurred during his sleep, and with their help found his way to the designated shrine. There he was anointed with the holy oil of the lamp before the saint's eikon, and bowed long in humble adoration at her feet. Nothing remarkable happened at the time. But on his homeward way the devout man felt a strange pain in his ear, and upon putting his hand to the sore place, what seemed a winged insect flew out and vanished from view. Wondering what this might mean, he entered the house in which he served, and set himself to prepare the oven in which the bread for the family was to be baked that day. But all his efforts to kindle the fire were in vain; the wood only smoked. This went on so long that, like most persons under the same circumstances, the much-tried man lost his temper and gave way to the impulse to use bad language. Whereupon sonorous imprecations on the obstinate fuel shook the air. The bystanders could not believe their ears. They thought the sounds proceeded from some mysterious voice in the oven. But the deaf-mute protested that he heard his friends talking, and assured them that the words they heard were his own; S. Theodosia had opened his ears and loosed his tongue. The news of the marvel spread far and wide and reached even the court. Andronicus II. sent for the young man,