She was born into a wealthy family and was orphaned young and was taken in by the local nunnery and on becoming a nun herself, she used some of her inheritance to commission many big, elaborate icons for the Church with the biggest and most elaborate being the one of Jesus that she proudly hung over the main gate of the monastery of St. Anastasia in Constantinople.
Not a fan of massive Jesus icons was Emperor Leo III who, when he became emperor, ordered that all religious images be destroyed because worshiping icons was wrong so he sent soldiers to remove it. Anyway, an imperial guardsman arrived with his ladder, and climbed up to take the icon down while Theodosia and a few of her nun chums stood close by.
While one was taking it down and balancing awkwardly on the top rung, she gave his ladder a good shake, the officer came crashing down to ground with a crunch of breaking bones and died from his injuries.
The guard's superior was nearby and came running over to arrest Theodosia who explained that she really didn't want them to remove her icon and just in case that didn't get the point across, the nuns picking up rocks and doing what any peace loving bunch of nuns would do and bashing his brains in definitely did.
The nuns were arrested and brought to the Emperor who ordered the others be beheaded but he saved a more bizarre and gruesome fate for Theodosia as the ringleader by giving her a hundred lashes each day for a week and then on the eighth day decided to hammer a ram's horn through her throat.
Her tomb is said to be the site of numerous healing's of the sick who turn up in their droves to be healed but unless you turn up with a goat horn jammed in your neck, she really isn't much help.
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