Saint Valentine’s Day
Saint Valentine’s Day
Saint Valentine is a
celebration which takes place on 14 February. Since it is the least favorite
commercial celebration I will not put much accent on details. Everyone
considers it the day of love but little do know about Saint Valentine himself
and origins of this story.
We have very little
information on this Saint therefore the Catholic Church decided to remove him
from the calendar in 1969, he still is considered a Saint nevertheless. There
were discovered several Saints having this name living in that period but he is
associated with 2 of them. Some argue that it may be the same person or 2
entire different people.
Saint Valentine was a clergyman from 3rd Century
in the Roman Empire under Claudius II rule. He had helped a lot of people,
converted them, preached Christianity which made the Emperor very angry and
decided to make him a martyr, was buried on the Via Flaminia in North Rome. He
died around the date of 14 February 269 AD and this was the date established officially
by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD to be celebrated in his honor. Some associate this
Saint with the Bishop of Terni (a town from Umbria) which also was a martyr.
Possible relics of this Saint are in: Basilica Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome,
Saint Anton Church in Madrid, Basilica of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Prague,
there are more relics.
The origin of this
celebration unfortunately has a dark side especially a pagan side. The roots of
this feast are in the Roman Festival Lupercalia. Lupercalia was a Roman pagan
fertility feast which is traced back to approx. 5 Century BC. It is dedicated
to Lupercus (Faunus, Greek Equivalent) the Roman God of Agriculture as well as
to the founders of Rome: Romulus & Remus. Originally was named as Februa
later being replaced.
The rituals took place
between 13-15 February in Lupercal Cave and within Roman open air. It began
with a sacrifice inside the cave of one or more male goats (which are a
representation of sexuality), and a dog. These sacrifices were done by priests
from order Luperci and once they finished this they smeared on each other's
foreheads the knife with the animal blood, meanwhile laughing. The blood was
then removed with a milk soaked wood. The feast only started after the end of
the sacrifices, then Luperci cut strips (also called thongs), of fresh goat
hide and running naked or almost naked whipping any woman from their sight with
the strips.
During Lupercalia
festival, the man randomly chose a woman's name from a jar and were couple for
that event, some even married and fell in love. In time the habit with
nakedness lost popularity and the festival was more decent with men having
cloth and whipping only hands by then. It is considered that the Saint
Valentine celebration appeared to replace this pagan festival with a Christian
one. The romantic side however was increasing in the 1370's/1380's when Geoffrey
Chaucer wrote the poem called "Parliament of Fowls", which describes
the mating of birds in early Spring. That period was very popular with love,
especially an impossible one between knights and damsels, therefore this was a
perfect context to appear and spread the romance. The image of Cupid in this
celebration is actually a handsome God Eros, from Greek Mythology which used
arrows to incite love between people. Later in Hellenistic time it was
represented as the popular chubby child. The actual Valentine's Day was
celebrated in Occident in the 17 Century. In middle of 18 Century all social
classes exchanged small tokens of affection or handwritten letters. After 1900
the printed cards replaced the other.
Regarding the religious
aspect of this as an Orthodox Christian (no matter if Eastern or Oriental)
should not participate in this celebration. We do not have any Saint Valentine
on 14 February, exists but a total different person, it is not good as a
Christian to promote this industry and marketing done worldwide, especially
based on suffering of a martyr, even if he does not belong to our Church he
died for his Christian faith against Pagan Idols and is not an ethical
Christian behaviour to commemorate him like that. Also another important aspect
is that all this love should be inside us and offer it in different ways not
with some chocolates, plushies and other things they invented as products. Another
very important reason why a true Christian should not celebrate this feast it
is because of the inappropriate and abusive pagan roots and rituals which
happened before being converted to a Christian feast, so that it can be lost
somehow the pagan connection, which it doesn't, it is just an illusion.
