Give your loved ones a hug and a kiss from all our little monkeys!
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Who was Valentine?
According to Eastern Orthodoxy, Valentine was martyred in Rome in the year 269 under Emperor Claudius Flavius. He had been put under the charge of General Asterius, who was supposed to persuade him to deny Christ. Instead, St. Valentine healed the general’s daughter from the blindness that had afflicted her for two years. He then baptised Asterius and his whole household. The Emperor in his foolish rage had them all tortured and killed. (Here is more).
St. Valentine knew that he might get caught in his Christian activities, but because he loved Christ with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself, he was willing to risk his life to free the prisoners and spread the Gospel of Christ to those who needed to hear it.
The Bible Says: “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”(John 15:13)
In the Orthodox Church, we celebrate Saint Valentine on July 6th.
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The feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those “… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.” As Gelasius implied, nothing was known, even then, about the lives of any of these martyrs. The Saint Valentine that appears in various martyrologies in connection with February 14 is described either as:
- A priest in Rome,
- A bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), or
- A martyr in the Roman province of Africa.
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The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle, (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome.
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In Roman times, February 15th was the date for the celebration of Lupercalia. This was a festival of eroticism that honored Juno Februata, the goddess of “feverish” love. Men and woman would pull names out of a hat to be paired for the festivities of sexual game playing. At that time, the Church tried to change it into a “ritual of romance.” One angle they took was to adopt St. Valentine as a spiritual role model and to change the date from the 15th to the 14th, which is St. Valentine’s feast day (according to the Roman calendar).
After that, men and women drew names to find their “valentine,” who they would exchange gifts with. The tradition and importance of the holiday took off from there. Valentine’s Day grew in popularity throughout the centuries. Purchasing Valentine’s Day cards became the most popular way to declare your love in the eighteenth century and the tradition of candy and flowers emerged later in the nineteenth.
