In 450, a Roman soldier in Constantinople went to fetch water for a blind man. As he went, a woman’s voice calling him ‘emperor’ directed him to a spring, which subsequently cured the man’s blindness. Later on, Leo unexpectedly became Roman Emperor, and guessing the voice had been the Virgin Mary’s, he dedicated a church to her on that spot.

One day in 1453, a monk was frying fish near a healing spring in Constantinople sacred to the Virgin Mary. When the monk was told the Turks had broken into the City, he scoffed at the news, saying it was as likely as that his frying fish would jump into the spring – which they immediately did.

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