Every year on February 14, people all around the world celebrate the Roman-Catholic holiday of Valentine’s Day. We celebrate with chocolate, hearts, cards, bears, and flowers. But have you ever wondered where the love-filled holiday originated?
In the late years of 200 A.D, there was a Roman priest who was called Saint Valentine. During this time there was also a Roman Emperor that went by the name of Claudias who persecuted the church. He prohibited the marriage of young people. He did this based on the hypothesis that young soldiers fought better than married soldiers. Claudias believed this because married soldiers would worry about their wives or families rather than worry about what was going on in the war. Despite Claudias’s wish, St. Valentine would go ahead and secretly marry people since he believed in marriage and he was a priest. Unfortunately, Valentine was caught. He was arrested and tortured for performing marriage ceremonies of young people against Claudias’s command. In 269 A.D. Valentine was sentenced to a three-part execution that consisted of beating, stoning, and finally decapitation. This was all because of his belief for Christian marriage.
One man to judge Valentine in line with the Roman law at the time was a man called Asterius. This man had a blind daughter. Valentine prayed and healed the young daughter with such astounding effect that he became a Christian man. The last words Valentine wrote was in a letter to Asterius’s daughter. He signed the note, “From your Valentine.” This gesture is what inspired today’s romantic saying.
Though the history of how Valentine’s Day came to be was a bit more brutal than we would have thought, without it we wouldn’t have the red-heart holiday that many of us so love.