Valentine’s Day

The Feast of Saint Valentine

The Catholic Encyclopedia says at least three Saint Valentines, all martyrs, are named under February 14 in the early martyrologies. One was a priest at Rome and another a bishop of Interamna (now Terni). Both died in the second half of the 3rd century and were buried on the Flaminian Way. The Acta of both are late and of no historical value, and nothing more is known of the third, in Africa. Vatican News places the bishop of Terni about seventy years after the priest, so sources differ on the dates. This is Background: a day for a martyr, with no love in it.

of relatively late date and of no historical value.

Vatican News retells the Roman Martyrology’s story: the Roman priest Valentine heals a blind girl, Emperor Claudius condemns him, and he is beheaded on the Via Flaminia around AD 270. This comes from the late Acta that the Catholic Encyclopedia sets aside (H1). Popular retellings add that Claudius forbade soldiers to marry and that Valentine married them in secret, or that he sent a note to a jailer’s daughter signed “from your Valentine.” No early source for either was found. They are legends, not records.

A popular story says that in 496 Pope Gelasius I set Valentine’s feast on February 14 to replace the Roman Lupercalia. The Catholic Encyclopedia confirms that Gelasius ended the Lupercalia at Rome after a long contest, but its article on him says nothing of Valentine. No early source was found that ties the two together, and the Lupercalia fell on February 15, not the 14th.

Chaucer’s poem has the birds meet to choose their mates on Saint Valentine’s Day. Britannica dates it to 1380-90 and notes it is often thought to mark the marriage of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in 1382. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the belief that birds paired on the day is the origin of its popular customs, and that the day became a time for love letters and lovers’ tokens. Jack Oruch (Speculum, 1981) argues that Chaucer was the first to join the saint’s day to love. This is the first sure record of the day as a lovers’ day.

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says French and English writing of the 14th and 15th centuries alludes to the custom, and names two of Gower’s French ballades as perhaps the earliest; Oruch holds that Gower, Clanvowe and Oton de Grandson took the idea from Chaucer. In a Paston letter, Dame Elizabeth Brews writes, in modern spelling, that Monday is Saint Valentine’s Day and every bird chooses a mate, and a daughter addresses a suitor as her Valentine. The couples who chose each other were called one another’s valentines.

Howland graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1847 and that year received her first English valentine. She had lace paper and other supplies ordered from abroad and began making her own, and her brother took samples on his sales trips. Her first advertisement appeared in the Worcester Daily Spy in February 1850. She is called the “Mother of the American Valentine.”

As postcard sales fell, the brothers began selling valentines and Christmas cards in envelopes. A fire on January 11, 1915 destroyed their office and inventory, and they bought presses and began printing their own cards that year.

The reform of the General Roman Calendar removes Saint Valentine, whom the Roman church had kept on February 14 until then, and gives the day to Cyril and Methodius, missionaries to the Slavs. Aleteia says doubt over which Valentine was meant played a part, and that the decree was itself dated February 14, 1969. Local churches may still keep him, and Vatican News notes that the Roman Martyrology still names two Valentines for the day.

Forecasts record Valentine’s spending of $29.1 billion for the United States, up from $27.5 billion in 2025, and a record average gift budget of $199.78. Fifty-five percent of consumers plan to celebrate, and 83 percent of those plan a gift for a partner. These are pre-holiday projections from a survey, not final totals.

Scripture does not mention the day, and the saint is hard to find. The martyrs named Valentine are known only from late and unreliable Acta (H1, H2). In the Western churches February 14 was their day. How it became a day for lovers is where historians divide.

The popular answer is that the church replaced a Roman festival. The Lupercalia, held on February 15, is named by many writers, and the World Book Encyclopedia of 1973, quoted by Jehovah’s Witnesses, says the customs “probably come from an ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia.” Pope Gelasius did end the Lupercalia at Rome, but no early source says he put a Valentine feast in its place, and no lovers’ custom is recorded on Valentine’s day until the 14th century (H3).

The other answer is a poet. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the customs come from a medieval belief that birds paired in mid-February (H4). Jack Oruch’s 1981 article in Speculum argues that Chaucer himself first joined the saint’s day to love, and that Gower, Clanvowe and Oton de Grandson then took the idea up. On that account the tie to love is a fourteenth-century one. Either way, the day the church kept was a martyr’s day with no love in it (H1).

The Lupercalia theory

The Chaucer theory (Oruch, 1981)

Roman Catholics

The Orthodox Church in America

Secular Western culture

Jehovah’s Witnesses

The United Church of God

The Churches of Christ

Saints’ days for the martyrs

The Roman calendar gave February 14 to Saint Valentine until 1969 (H8), and the Roman Martyrology still names two martyrs of that name for the day. The Orthodox Church in America keeps the bishop of Terni on July 30. Neither ties the day to love.

Choosing a valentine

From Chaucer’s day, couples chose each other on February 14 and sent letters and tokens, and the one chosen was called a valentine (H4, H5). The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1912 says the custom had “of late years fallen into comparative desuetude.”

Cards and lace

Valentines were sent in America in great numbers by the 1840s. Lace valentines came from England, and Esther Howland made and sold her own in Worcester, Massachusetts, from about 1850 (H6). Hall Brothers began printing their own in 1915 (H7).

Gifts and dinners

The National Retail Federation forecast a record $29.1 billion in 2026, with a record average of $199.78 a shopper (H9).

The church’s appointed remembrance is weekly, and it looks to the cross

The New Testament gives the church one day and one memorial: the first day, and the Supper that proclaims His death (S1, S2).

The church gathered “upon the first day of the week” to break bread (S1). The Lord Himself gave the memorial: “this do in remembrance of me”, and Paul says what it proclaims, “the Lord’s death till he come” (S2). Apostolic example binds, and a specific appointment excludes other kinds: the church has no warrant to add a yearly memorial of a martyr to its worship.

The New Testament shows no church keeping a day for any martyr, Stephen included. The Valentine feast is the church’s own addition, and the lovers’ day is not a church feast at all (H4).

Scripture honors faithful married love, on any day

The New Testament teaches husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and calls marriage honorable (S3, S4).

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it” (S3). “Let marriage be had in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled” (S4). Love of this kind is commanded every day of the year, and the church should teach it on any Lord’s Day.

The verses also set the bounds. The same verse in Hebrews says God will judge fornicators and adulterers, so a Christian keeping the lovers’ day does not take the world’s idea of romance as their rule. Love is shown in faithfulness.

Days are a matter of conscience for each believer, not a law for the church

Romans 14 leaves one believer free to regard a day and another free not to, and forbids each to judge the other (S5, S6).

Paul writes of believers who differed over days: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind” (S5). The days at Rome were most likely Jewish days and fasts, so the passage does not set out to approve a new feast. It does give the rule for a believer’s own regard for a day: it is between them and the Lord, and no one may judge them for it (S6).

So a Christian may keep Valentine’s Day as a civil holiday, send a card, and honor a spouse. What they may not do is make the day binding on others, or bring it into the church’s worship as a holy day (A1).

“Learn not the way of the nations.” Valentine’s Day comes from the Roman Lupercalia, so a Christian should not take it up.

Read the verse in its place: the nations are dismayed at the signs of the heavens, and the verses that follow describe idols made by the workman (S7). Jeremiah forbids the nations’ fear and idolatry, not every custom they have. The Lupercalia origin is also the weak step: no early source ties the two days (H3), and the Catholic Encyclopedia and Oruch trace the lovers’ customs to a medieval belief about birds and to Chaucer (H4). Even a pagan root would not make a card an idol rite unless it were used as one. The stronger objection to a church feast is its absence from the New Testament (A1).

Israel was told not to ask how the nations served their gods and do likewise, and not to add to what God commanded. Borrowing the Lupercalia’s rites breaks both.

The warning is about worshiping Jehovah the way the nations worshiped their gods, in His own worship. Whether Valentine’s Day borrowed any pagan rite is not shown (H3). The last words, “thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it,” are the strong part: they bind the worship God appoints, which supports the pattern of the Lord’s Day and Supper (A1). They do not reach a card sent to a spouse, which is no part of worship.

Christians must come out from among the world’s customs and touch no unclean thing, and Valentine’s Day is a custom of the world.

Paul’s charge is about being unequally yoked with unbelievers and sharing in idol worship (verses 14-16). Nothing in a card, a flower or a dinner is an idol. Paul elsewhere lets a believer eat what is sold in the market without asking where it came from (1 Corinthians 10:25). The verse is aimed at fellowship with idols, not at the calendar of the world.

Whatever a Christian does, they do for the glory of God. That is the test of any custom, and a card to a spouse passes it.

This is the right test for a Christian’s own life, and it frees the card, the flowers and the dinner done as thanks for a spouse (A3). It does not make a day holy, or give the church a feast. The verse governs what a believer does, and it sets no day for the assembly (A1).

The Bible itself sings of strong, faithful love, so a day that honors it is biblical.

The Song praises love, and a husband and wife may too. It does not appoint a day for it, and the passage does not name February 14. Its subject is love that lasts a lifetime, which no one day can hold (A2).

Study

• The Catholic Encyclopedia says the Acta of the martyrs named Valentine are of no historical value (H1). How should a church treat a feast whose chief figure cannot be identified?
• The Lupercalia theory and the Chaucer theory give opposite accounts of where the day came from (H3, H4). Does the argument against the day rest on which is true? What would you do if the pagan root were proved?
• Hebrews 13:4 honors marriage and warns of judgment on the immoral. What would a Christian keeping the lovers’ day look like, given both halves of that verse?
• Romans 14:6 says the one who regards a day regards it “unto the Lord”. Can sending a card to a spouse be done that way?
• Paul tells the Corinthians to do everything to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). What custom, kept in one home as a pleasure, would you hesitate to keep in the church’s worship, and why?

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