Saint Valentine

St Valentine's feast day is 14 February, but the saint has not been in the General Roman Calendar since 1969. Here is why, and where the lovers' day comes from.

Who they were

The early sources mention a martyr called Valentine buried on the Via Flaminia in Rome, and a bishop of Terni with the same name; whether they are one person is not clear. The death is placed in the third century, with no solid biography.

None of the stories about a Valentine who married couples in secret belongs to the early sources. They are late additions, made once the date was already attached to love.

Why they are remembered

The link with lovers begins in fourteenth-century England, in Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry, which ties Saint Valentine's day to birds choosing their mates. From there it became the lovers' feast and, in the nineteenth century, a commercial one, with printed cards.

The 1969 revision of the calendar removed from the universal calendar those celebrations whose historical basis was too thin, and this was one of them. Valentine stays in the martyrology and in local calendars, notably at Terni, whose patron he is.

In the liturgy

Not in the General Roman Calendar. On 14 February the universal calendar keeps Saints Cyril and Methodius, a memorial. At Terni Valentine is patron, by the local calendar.