Although the Eastern Orthodox take their liturgy and calendar extremely seriously - often pointing to it as a principal example of an infallible source of tradition - many of those celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar either did not exist, or do not deserve to be venerated:

• Theodosia of Constantinople (May 29th)
  • In 729 AD, iconoclast Byzantine Emperor Leo III (685-741 AD) ordered that an icon of Jesus Christ be removed from the imperial palace in Constantinople. Theodosia shook the ladder of the worker removing the icon, causing him to fall, and die. She was subsequently executed. For this, the Orthodox call her a "martyr"
• Barlaam and Josaphat (August 26th [Greek], November 19th [Slavic])
  • Barlaam, Josaphat, and Josaphat's father, Abenner, are characters in what turned out to be a fictional, Christianized version of the story of Gautama Buddha. They are celebrated as "Barlaam and Joasáph, Prince of India, and King Abennar, father of Ven. Joasáph" (The Service Books of the Orthodox Church, St. Tikhon's Seminary Press, Appendix VI, November 19)
  • "The story is a Christianized version of one of the legends of Buddha, as even the name Josaphat would seem to show. This is said to be a corruption of the original Joasaph, which is again corrupted from the middle Persian Budasif (Budsaif = Bodhisattva)" (Catholic Encyclopedia - Barlaam and Josaphat)
• Thecla (September 24th)
  • Thecla, who is called by the Orthodox, "Holy Protomartyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles Thecla" (The Service Books of the Orthodox Church, St. Tikhon's Seminary Press, Appendix VI, September 24), is said to have been a contemporary with the Apostle Paul, according to the apocryphal work entitled The Acts of Paul and Thecla
  • Notable events in the story include Jesus appearing to Thecla, Paul being arrested for allegedly preaching virginity and leading to the breakup of betrothals, Thecla miraculously surviving being burned alive, Paul denying Thecla baptism, Roman officials tying Thecla to a lion, but the lion licks her feet instead of attacking her, Thecla again being brought to an arena to be torn by wild beasts, but one of the lions defends her, Thecla then jumps into a pool filled with man-eating seals, saying "In the name of Jesus Christ I am baptized on my last day", but the seals all appear to die instead, and a "cloud of fire" covers Thecla so that no one can see her body, and no other animals can come near her. Afterward, "she girded herself; and having sewed the tunic so as to make a man's cloak, she came to Myra, and found Paul", Paul sends her, saying "Go, and teach the word of God", she returns to Iconium, "and dwelt in a cave seventy-two years, living upon herbs and water", at one point, men from the city try to attack her, but God saves her, bringing her underground. She dies on September 24th, at the age of ninety
  • Tertullian (160-220 AD), commenting on the story, said, "But if the writings which wrongly go under Paul's name, claim Thecla's example as a license for women's teaching and baptizing, let them know that, in Asia, the presbyter who composed that writing, as if he were augmenting Paul's fame from his own store, after being convicted, and confessing that he had done it from love of Paul, was removed from his office." (Tertullian, On Baptism, Chapter 17)
• A number of women who deceived others into thinking that they were men, and often dressed in men's clothing, in order to join male monastic communities - violating Deuteronomy 22:5, and the many general commandments in Scripture to avoid being deceptive or lying - and who likely, as their prototype Thecla, did not even exist:
  • Anastasia the Patrician (March 10th)
  • Theodora of Alexandria (September 11th)
  • Euphrosyne of Alexandria (September 25th)
    • "Her story belongs to that group of legends which relate how Christian virgins, in order the more successfully to lead the life of celibacy and asceticism to which they had dedicated themselves, put on male attire and passed for men. According to the narrative of her life in the "Vitae Patrum", Euphrosyne was the only daughter of Paphnutius, a rich man of Alexandria, who desired to marry her to a wealthy youth. But having consecrated her life to God and apparently seeing no other means of keeping this vow, she clothed herself as a man and under the name of Smaragdus gained admittance into a monastery of men near Alexandria, where she lived for thirty-eight years after" (Catholic Encyclopedia - St. Euphrosyne)
  • Matrona of Perge (November 9th)
  • Eugenia of Rome (December 24th)

The examples above of the Orthodox venerating people who likely did not even exist are demonstrative of why Protestants simply do not believe that Catholic and Orthodox Christians have faithfully preserved a corpus of supposed "unwritten tradition" from the Apostles. Rather, they have accepted traditions and practices which crept in later, and were accepted, wrongfully, into Christian communities - many of which had an unbiblical fascination with virginity and asceticism, as their acceptance of many of the above legends demonstrates. This acceptance of illegitimate tradition is especially evident in the case of Mary, the mother of the Lord, whose obvious association with virginity catapulted her to incredible heights in these communities.

Without admitting that the Church is fallible - which does not mean "the gates of Hell" have somehow prevailed against it (Matthew 16:18) - and that rather than a liturgy, or Ecumenical Councils, the Scripture alone is the Church's infallible guide, there is no basis or means to reform when errors have crept in, as in the case of the above examples.

Conclusion

If the above list were to include each Saint in Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism whose basis for veneration is an incredibly dubious, miracle-filled hagiography from centuries after they supposedly lived, it would be exceptionally long. According to such legends, many of the Saints in these traditions had a life more miraculous than most of the Apostles and Old Testament prophets.

Engaging in a reasoned study of hagiographies - which are voluminous, and of which this article has not even scratched the surface - is one of the best demonstrations of the faultiness of "tradition".