Of all the Saints that the Church remembers throughout the year, this Saint that I want to talk about today is probably recognized more than any other. With the exception of one other Saint, St. Nicholas, whose feast day is commemorated on Dec. 6 (during the same season as the birth of Christ), the name of this Saint is well-known throughout all of North America – and on his Feast Day, millions of people, both
St. Valentine was a priest who lived in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius Flavius. At that time, it was forbidden to be a Christian and therefore Christians had to perform their sacraments in secret, include marriage ceremonies. So St. Valentine would take Christian couple down into the catacombs in the middle of the night and marry them without anyone knowing. In the year 269 A.D. the emperor ordered General Asterius to persuade Valentine
By Bryce Buffenbarger Cancel your plans for February 14! As many of us prepare to celebrate Valentine’s day this coming Sunday, I thought it would be nice to explore a little bit of the day’s history. As we might expect from our experience with Christmas, the celebration of this secularized holiday bears very little resemblance to the Church’s memory of this great saint. For starters, the date is wrong! The Orthodox Church actually remembers three
By David Kithcart Flowers, candy, red hearts and romance. That’s what Valentine’s day is all about, right? Well, maybe not. The origin of this holiday for the expression of love really isn’t romantic at all — at least not in the traditional sense. Father Frank O’Gara of Whitefriars Street Church in Dublin, Ireland, tells the real story of the man behind the holiday — St. Valentine. “He was a Roman Priest at a time when
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