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The skull of St. Valentine is kept in the Greek-Catholic Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome
(Credit : Dnalor 01, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT, via Wikimedia Commons)

Valentine’s Day (February 14) is when lovers express their affection with greetings and gifts. Given their similarities, it has been suggested that the holiday has origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February. The festival, which celebrated the coming of spring, included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery. At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I forbade the celebration of Lupercalia and is sometimes attributed with replacing it with St. Valentine’s Day, but the true origin of the holiday is vague at best. Valentine’s Day did not come to be celebrated as a day of romance until about the 14th century.

About the Saint

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, at least three different St. Valentines were recorded in early histories of martyrs under the date of Feb. 14. There are also accounts of an African St. Valentine, an early Christian who was persecuted along with his companions. But it seems that nothing else is known about this possible saint.

The St. Valentine celebrated today may have been two different people.

One account holds that St. Valentine was a priest in Rome, and the other says he was a bishop of Interamna (modern-day Terni). Both of these men were persecuted and ultimately killed for their faith, and buried somewhere along the Flaminian Way. It is also possible that they were the same person, however.

"He was either a Roman priest and physician who was martyred, or he was the bishop of Terni, Italy, who was also martyred in Rome, around 270 A.D. by Claudius the Goth” (the Roman emperor at the time), as per experts.

St. Valentine — whether priest or bishop — was martyred on Feb. 14, now celebrated as Valentine’s Day. According to most accounts, he was beaten and then beheaded after a time of imprisonment.

Local devotion to him spread, and Pope Julius I had a basilica dedicated to the saint built approximately two miles from Rome, over Valentine’s burial place. His skull is now kept in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Rome and is decorated with flower crowns on his feast day.

Celebration of Love

Formal messages, or valentines, appeared in the 1500s, and by the late 1700s commercially printed cards were being used. The first commercial valentines in the United States were printed in the mid-1800s. Valentines commonly depict Cupid, the Roman god of love, along with hearts, traditionally the seat of emotion. Because it was thought that the avian mating season begins in mid-February, birds also became a symbol of the day. Traditional gifts include candy and flowers, particularly red roses, a symbol of beauty and love.

The day is popular in the United States as well as in Britain, Canada, and Australia, and it is also celebrated in other countries, including Argentina, France, Mexico, and South Korea. In the Philippines it is the most common wedding anniversary, and mass weddings of hundreds of couples are not uncommon on that date. The holiday has expanded to expressions of affection among relatives and friends. Many schoolchildren exchange valentines with one another on this day.

- Article by Catholic Time Staff