How did Valentine's Day go from dark to a love celebration? Here is the origin of the holiday (2024)

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How did Valentine's Day go from dark to a love celebration? Here is the origin of the holiday? ›

When did Valentine's Day become about love and stuff? According to History.com, Pope Gelasius I, to expel pagan rituals, combined the festival with St. Valentine's Day in the fifth century. The holiday seemed to mature from the revelry of ancient Rome to a day of romantic love over time.

The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary recorded the celebration of the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14. The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries, when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the "lovebirds" of early spring.

Saint Valentine was discovered and imprisoned in a torture-ridden Roman jail, where he fell in love with a mysterious girl (believed to be his prosecutor's daughter). He sent her a love letter signed 'from your Valentine' right before his execution, thus originating the romantic sign-off still widely used today.

1 John 4:7-12. Dear friends: let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

In a more literal sense, red is the color of blood that pumps through our hearts, which represents love and passion and romance. Additionally, red was the first color to be linked with Valentine's Day at Lupercalia in Rome, an ancient pagan festival held each year on February 15.

Valentine's Day did not come to be celebrated as a day of romance until about the 14th century. Although there were several Christian martyrs named Valentine, the day may have taken its name from a priest who was martyred about 270 ce by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus.

One Valentine was a priest in third-century Rome who defied Emperor Claudius II after the ruler outlawed marriage for young men. St. Valentine would perform marriages in secret for young lovers, ultimately leading to his death.

While imprisoned, Valentine cared for his fellow prisoners and also his jailor's blind daughter. Legend has it that Valentine cured the girl's blindness and that his final act before being executed was to write her a love message signed 'from your Valentine'. Valentine was executed on 14 February in the year 270.

Al Capone, who was at his Florida home at the time, was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the massacre. The impetus for the plan may have been the North Side Gang's hijacking of some expensive whisky being illegally smuggled by Capone's gang from Canada across the Detroit River.

However, many historians believe the day originated from the Roman pagan festival of fertility called Lupercalia, an event filled with animal sacrifice, random coupling and the whipping of women; not quite the romantic chocolate and roses day that we celebrate today.

What is the evil story behind Valentine's Day? ›

The most common is that on one February 14 during the 3rd century A.D., a man named Valentine was executed by the Roman Emperor Claudius II after being imprisoned for assisting persecuted Christians and secretly marrying Christian couples in love.

Valentine's Day is a peculiar Christian holiday not mentioned in the New Testament—unsurprisingly, as it was instituted in honor of a third-century c.e. “saint” named Valentine.

While the holiday has undergone secularization over time, its origins in Christian martyrdom and acts of love align with broader spiritual themes of compassion, selflessness, and devotion. For some, Valentine's Day serves as a reminder of the importance of love in both human relationships and spiritual practice.

2- Because of its link with desire and passion, red is the colour of love. Red is a confident and bold colour that evokes sentiments of enthusiasm and energy. We associate red with passion and intensity, which is why it is the ideal colour to convey love on Valentine's Day.

If that works for you, do it. But the biblical pattern teaches us that romantic love between husband and wife should be on display often and much. It isn't that celebrating Valentine's Day is too much; it is too little and weak. Christians, live your married years so that you don't need Valentine's Day.

Grey is a symbol of no interest. A person in a grey dress indicates that they have been ghosted and is no longer hopeful in love. Better luck next time! Black is a negative indication and signifies that the person has been rejected by someone he wants to share his/her heart with.

While the Saint Valentine story set the groundwork for establishing the day as a holiday for romantic love, what truly solidified the connection between Saint Valentine and love was a poem by medieval author Geoffrey Chaucer in 1375, which historians consider the origin of the "modern" celebration of Valentine's Day, ...

St Valentine's Day is an annual festival to celebrate romantic love, friendship and admiration. Every year on 14 February people celebrate this day by sending messages of love and affection to partners, family and friends.

Some believe Valentine's Day is celebrated on February 14 because that is when Saint Valentine was killed or buried. Others claim the date has to do with the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia, which was a days-long celebration that would start on February 13 and end on February 15.