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Nilus of Sinai, in his Letter to Heliodorus Silentiarius, records a miracle in which St. Plato of Ankyra appeared to a Christian in a dream.

The Saint was recognized because the young man had often seen his portrait.

This recognition of a religious apparition from likeness to an image was also a characteristic of pagan pious accounts of appearances of gods to humans, and was a regular topos in hagiography.

One critical recipient of a vision from Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki apparently specified that the saint resembled the " more ancient " images of him-presumably the 7th century mosaics still in Hagios Demetrios.

Another, an African bishop, had been rescued from Arab slavery by a young soldier called Demetrios, who told him to go to his house in Thessaloniki.

Having discovered that most young soldiers in the city seemed to be called Demetrios, he gave up and went to the largest church in the city, to find his rescuer on the wall.