Who Was St. Valentine?

If you’re a cynic who thinks Valentine’s Day is “for the birds,” you might be onto something.

February 14th is a day devoted to love, romance, and boxed chocolates. But who was St. Valentine, the namesake for this holiday? As it turns out, there is no straightforward answer.

St. Valentine: A mix of facts and legends

Who was St. Valentine? When did he live, and die? And why was he important? The answers depend on who you ask. There are countless explanations, but most sources agree on two things:

• St. Valentine was a Christian who lived during Roman times.
• He was killed by the Romans, most likely beheaded.

But beyond that, accounts vary wildly.

One story says Valentine was a priest who secretly married Christians against the wishes of Emperor Claudius II. The emperor thought that single men made better soldiers, so he enforced a ban on young men getting married. That meant amorous couples who wanted to get married had to do so on the downlow.

Another version says that Valentine was a bishop in Terni, Italy. When he restored sight to a blind girl, her family converted to Christianity. What this story has to do with love or romance has been lost to time.

And yet a third story says that Valentine helped Christians escape persecution in Roman prisons. When he was later imprisoned himself, he wrote a letter to the jailkeeper’s daughter. He signed the note, “Your Valentine.”

No one alive today knows for sure, but these stories about Valentine may all be true. Or perhaps none of them are true. It’s also possible that there are multiple stories because there was more than one man named Valentine shaking things up.

The history around him (or them) is so uncertain that the Catholic Church removed St. Valentine’s Day from the General Roman Calendar in the 1960s. While the "St." moniker has stuck, February 14th no longer has any religious significance. It is a secular holiday, a boon to restaurants, florists, and chocolatiers.

But even with a murky past, some still consider St. Valentine to be a Christian martyr. He is still informally considered the patron saint of love, happy marriages--and inexplicably--epilepsy and beekeeping.

Several churches throughout Europe claim to have his remains. The Basilica di Santa Maria in Rome has St. Valentine’s skull, which is on display to the public. His heart is supposedly stored inside a golden box at Whitefriar Church in Dublin.

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

St. Valentine’s story isn’t very romantic, is it? And one big question remains: Why is Valentine’s Day observed on February 14th? The simplest explanation is that he was killed on or around that day, but there is likely more to it than that.

If you’re a cynic who thinks Valentine’s Day is “for the birds,” you might be onto something. In Europe during the Middle Ages, it was thought that birds started mating on February 14th. St. Valentine’s Day might have been scheduled to coincide with, well, real life love birds.

Another explanation is that during the early days of Christianity, holidays were often moved to usurp pagan festivals. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Christmas being celebrated near the winter solstice. The ancient Romans celebrated the festival of Lupercalia in the middle of February. Lupercalia was a match-making, animal-sacrificing good time. It’s possible that St. Valentine’s Day was a Christian effort to take over Lupercalia.

The one thing we can be certain about St. Valentine’s Day? All chocolates and fresh cut roses are on sale the following day.

Further Reading About St. Valentine