The Shepherd, February 2005
Should we Christians Celebrate St Valentine’s Day?, 2
Valentine asked that the girl be brought to him. He prayed with tears, then he placed his hand on the blind girl’s eyes and said: “Lord Jesus Christ! Give light to Thy handmaid, for Thou are the True Light!” Immediately he had spoken these words, the girl’s sight was restored. Seeing this, Asterius and his wife fell to their knees before the Saint, saying: “We beg you, do as you would with us, so that we can become servants of Christ and save our souls!” Then Saint Valentine told them to destroy all the idols in their house, to forgive all their debtors and, after a three-day fast, to be baptised.
Asterius and his wife agreed to do all of this, and the Saint started teaching them the truth of the Christian faith. After three days, Asterius and all his household were baptised. When the Emperor found out what had happened, he immediately sent his soldiers to arrest everyone living in Asterius’ house, and to torture them so that they would deny Christ. He then ordered that Valentine, with some other Christians, be separated from Asterius’ family, hoping that, being apart from them, the newly-baptised, whose faith had not yet been tested, would soon deny Christ. The Emperor was wrong. Asterius died a martyr’s death with all his household, whom he strengthened with the following words: “Be brave; do not be fainthearted; for the One Who was in the furnace in Babylon with the three youths is now among us!” Saint Valentine, with some other Christians, was brought before Claudius for judgment, where in accordance with the Emperor’s order he was beaten mercilessly with sticks, and then beheaded.
The Holy Martyr Valentine ended his life with a glorious Christian death for Christ, and not for conducting secret marriages for Roman soldiers; and while he was in chains, he did not write love letters to the warden’s blind daughter. Rather, like all Christians sentenced to death, he prayed to Jesus Christ, asking that He would strengthen him during his fearful tortures.
The “ancient legend” about Saint Valentine is an insult not only to the memory of this Saint, but to the memory all the martyrs who died for Christ; it is an insult to the Holy Church and to us Christians today. We must worthily preserve the Christian Tradition from corruption by dishonourable people for whom gold is their god, for whom nothing is holy, and who are not even fearful of defiling the memory of the holy martyr if doing so brings money. [Have we not seen a similar thing with the broadcast of Jerry Springer’s “Opera” on TV recently ? - ed.]
From where did this unchristian celebration come, named as if deliberately to defile the holy martyr? It seems to have come neither from the Christian East or the Orthodox West, but from pure paganism. In ancient times in Rome, people used to celebrate the feast of the Lupercalia, which fell on the 15th February. That feast was dedicated to a Faunus [a faun or maybe Pan], a pagan god of fields, forests, pastures and animals. On that day, priests of Lupercalia would bring animals as sacrifices to the faun. It was believed that, on that specific day, every bird would choose a mate for itself. Lupercalia was also a feast for lovers, favoured by the goddess Juno. In order for Lupercalia to be retained, it was given a veneer of Christianity, but true Christianity never accepted such “christianised” paganism, and the Catholic Church always celebrated the memory of the holy martyr Valentine on the 6th of July: only Protestants [actually, to be fair, post-Protestants - ed.], who in any event reject the veneration of the Saints, accepted it. This “feast” arrived here from Protestant countries, England and America. We would like to ask our readers; should we Orthodox follow them?
Let us open the Holy Bible and read the Letter of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them. We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4:1-6)
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