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St. Valentine, patron saint of Terni, Italy. In the Italian city of Terni, Catholics look forward to February 14 as the feast day of St. Valentine, their city’s patron saint, whose relics are interred in their city’s cathedral. According to the ancient hagiographical legends, St. Valentine lived between 175 and 245. Valentine's Day as a Commercial Holiday . Valentine's Day is no longer part of the official liturgical calendar of any Christian church; it was dropped from the Catholic calendar in 1969. Its not a feast, a celebration, or a memorial of any martyrs. The Roman Catholic Church's transformation of Lupercalia into Valentine's Day was a deliberate act of religious syncretism. The Roman church, in its efforts to convert pagans while maintaining cultural continuity, systematically reinterpreted many pagan festivals through a Christian lens. This culminated in 496 AD when Pope Gelasius I This “fact-check” claims that the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia was “stolen” by the Catholic Church and transformed into St. Valentine’s Day. This idea goes back to rationalists of the 18 th century, including Fr. Alban Butler who compiled a Lives of the Saints and Francis Douce. Both sought to trace continuity of contemporary The holiday’s origins likely predate the venerated saint. The date of St. Valentine’s execution, the day after the February full moon, might be the real connection with affection. As fans of Shakespeare know, the Idus or “Ides” of each month on the ancient Roman calendar was the day of the full moon. This “fact-check” claims that the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia was “stolen” by the Catholic Church and transformed into St. Valentine’s Day. This idea goes back to rationalists of the 18th century, including Father Alban Butler who compiled a Lives of the Saints and Francis Douce. Both sought to trace continuity of contemporary A bust containing relics of St. Valentine, in Poland. Wikimedia. Valentine’s Day. February 14 is commemorated as Valentine’s Day, or St. Valentine’s Day in the calendar of the Anglican and Lutheran Churches, although in the Roman Catholic Church it was relegated to local status in Calendar of Saints, removed as a feast day, “since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Soon after, the church declared February 14th to be a day of feast to celebrate Saint Valentine. The rumor is that the Catholic Church had a hard time outlawing the celebration of Lupercalia, and Saint Valentine. In the fifth century AD, Pope Gelasius I banned Lupercalia and in 496 AD the Catholic Church declared February 14 a day to feast and celebrate the life of the martyred Saint Valentine, said to have been executed on 14 February 269 AD. In a similar fashion the Catholic church canonized saints who were celebrated with his or her own feast day and attributed with spheres of responsibility previously attributed to the various pagan gods. St. Stephen is the patron saint of stonemasons; doctors are to pray to St. Luke, fishermen to St. Andrew and carpenters to St. Joseph. Even though Catholicism is based on Christian beliefs, some rituals and practices from pagan religions in ancient times blended into Catholic tradition over the years. As Christianity spread long ago, the Church found it easier to convert people if they kept some familiar parts of their culture. So traces of pre-Christian folk religions gradually became In reality, the early Church had to merge itself with pagan practices and beliefs in order to blend into Roman society. In the rites and symbols of the Roman Catholic Church, we can find surviving Christ Died For The Ungodly by Horatius Bonar. The divine testimony concerning man is, that he is a sinner. God bears witness against him, not for him; and testifies that "there is none righteous, no, not one"; that there is "none that doeth good"; none "that understandeth"; none that even seeks after God, and, still more, none that loves Him (Psa. 14:1-3; Rom. 3:10-12). The early Christian church, under the influence of Roman emperors, incorporated elements of these pagan festivals into the celebration of All Souls’ Day (November 2), which eventually merged with the Celtic festival of Samhain to become the modern holiday of Halloween. Despite the ambiguity surrounding Valentine and his life, the Catholic Church declared him a saint and listed him in Roman Martyrology as being martyred on February 14. Origins of Valentine’s Day However, the Catholic practice of praying to saints has been called "de-facto idolatry" and even a relic of goddess worship. Rebranded pagan goddesses can be found in the Catholic Church today in forms of Saint Brigid and the Virgin Mary. Catholics say they don't worship Mary. Quite the opposite is true. The 8 pagan holidays, the Wheel of the year, are about the spiritual significance of the seasons. These are the main pagan festivals incorporated into Christianity. Celebrate the seasons, the pagan origins of Christian festivities, doctrines and rituals. While Pope Gelasius officially condemned the pagan Roman festival and banned its observance, many of its accompanying practices quickly appeared in a newly established holiday added by him to the official church list of feast days in A.D. 496—St. Valentine’s Day. Within fifty years the term “valentine” was being used as a way to describe a lover, with Valentine’s Day settling into its now traditional date of February 14. Valentine’s day, it’s the day when hopeless romantics and lovers send cards, chocolate, and roses to the one they desire. Many see this holiday as fun and innocent, after all, school children across the earth will be sending little cute cards and hard candy that say, “Be mine.” For those who grow up in the Catholic Church, it is a day to remember Saint Valentine, who was killed for
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