Profile St Valentine:His popularity is growing along with sales of his cards, but the origins of this saint are still a mystery, and even the Catholic church doubts his credentials, writes Shane Hegarty
Russia, 2003. St Valentine's Day has begun to consolidate its grip on the country's imagination; in only a decade it has become a day of cards and roses, beginning to catch up on the popular International Women's Day, a Soviet-era holiday celebrated two weeks later. But the western feast day has been marching steadily east, headed by the ever-willing foot soldiers of Hallmark.
In the city of Ekaterinburg, one man has had enough of this nonsense. In a local newspaper, the Russian Orthodox Church's main cultural official denounces Valentine's Day as "a day of fornication, a day of bestiality" brought to Russia from abroad. Perhaps Rev Andrei Kanev's ire is fuelled by a long-running feud with the city's small Roman Catholic population. Perhaps he is really, really angry that no one sent him a card.
Either way, he has no intention of popping into the local garage on his way home to pick up a dozen roses and a box of Milk Tray for the missus. "The cultural sewage pipes of Europe have burst and everything is coming up here," he announces.
A day of fornication and bestiality? Only for the lucky few. For most, Valentine's Day will be the usual mix of inflated expectation, deflated wallet and the customary panic of men trying to make a late date for dinner and then pretending that they've had it arranged for months.
It has been estimated by America's Greetings Card Association that, around the world, one billion cards will be sent on St Valentine's Day. They don't all have to be dedicated to lovers. St Valentine is also a patron saint of bee keepers, epileptics, fainters, travellers, young people and - handily, as we wait for our roast chicken to sneeze - the plague. Most notably, he is the patron saint of greeting card manufacturers. After foxholes, the headquarters of Hallmark is the place on earth where you are least likely to find an atheist.
Only Christmas betters February 14th as a more profitable time for the greetings card industry. Eighty-five per cent of Valentine's cards, according to that same survey, are bought by women. One presumes that the remaining 15 per cent bought by men are the 15 per cent left in the shop in the last hours of February 13th.
At some stage in the day, many men - on whom evolution has thrust a stubborn reluctance to connect with their more "emotional" side - will quietly wish they could get their hands on the fellow who came up with this whole wheeze.
THE FIRST PROBLEM is that we're not entirely sure which St Valentine we're celebrating. The number of recorded St Valentines runs into double figures, although the Catholic Encyclopaedia lists three of them as having been mentioned in early martyrologies: one a priest in Rome, another the bishop of an Italian town now known as Terni and the other a mysterious martyr said to have suffered with some companions in Africa.
To complicate matters further, the Roman priest and the Terni bishop seem to have been the same Valentine. Either way, the latter now gets the greater recognition, even if his achievements have been somewhat embellished over the centuries.
He is said, for instance, to have covertly married Roman soldiers, who would otherwise have been packed off to war by Emperor Claudius II, who preferred a front line of bachelors, and he is reputed to have been executed and beheaded for refusing to renounce Christ.
Further legend has it that, having ministered to a jailer's blind daughter, before his death he wrote a note to her which he signed off, "from your Valentine". Upon receiving this letter, the girl could suddenly see again. If this were true it would certainly have set an unattainable benchmark, because the gift of sight is far greater than a glitter-covered card and a jumbo box of Minstrels.
The second reason why he is a tough man to get hold of is that several churches across Europe claim to already have him. Or bits of him at least.
Relics claiming to be from St Valentine can be found in the Church of St Praxed in Rome and in Terni, as well as in the Austrian capital, Vienna, and the German town of Eltville.
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, is said to have brought Valentine's shoulder blade to Prague in the 14th century, where a church still houses it today.
The French town of Roquemaure had relics bought for it by a local landowner at an auction in Rome in 1868, as an effort to cure the area's vines of a calamitous disease. Blessed St John Duns Scotus church in Glasgow also claims to have his bones. In fact, Glasgow now declares itself as the City of Love at this time every year - a sound idea given that it has already given its name to a type of kiss.
But the Irish don't need to trawl the continent in search of St Valentine. So impressed was Pope Gregory XVI by a visiting Carmelite priest, John Spratt, that in 1835 he handed some of Valentine's blood and other items to the Irishman as a gift. Fr Pratt returned with them to the new church on Dublin's Whitefriars Street which he had helped build; the relics remain there to this day and are placed on the high altar on February 14th each year.
The Carmelites are sanguine about St Valentine's talent for being in many places at once. As the order explains on its website, "the remains of a saint could be found in many places, which does not detract from what is found in any one place or the veneration of the saint by the faithful."
As for the celebration he has inspired, February 14th is the day attributed to St Valentine in those martyrologies, and it has been suggested that it was subsequently picked as a lover's day primarily because of the medieval belief that this was the date on which birds chose a mate.
From that period on, the cult of Valentine grew. As early as the 15th century, a Dame Elizabeth Brews wrote to her man, addressing it, "Unto my rightwell beloved Valentine, John Paston Esquire".
And when he received it, presumably he clasped the letter to his chest loudly and decried the fact that he'd forgotten to book a restaurant.
THE DAY IS mentioned by Ophelia in Hamlet, which was written in 1600, and, as early as the 1820s, card-giving had become so popular that British post offices had to take on extra staff to cope with the added volume. It was British settlers who brought the idea to America, and the Americans have since brought it to the world.
It is becoming increasingly popular in several countries, even though many cultures have their own feast days dedicated to love. The Colombians celebrate Love and Friendship Day in September. The Slovenian celebration of love traditionally takes place on St Gregory's Day, March 12th. And Valentine's Day has become a big thing in China, placing it alongside Qixi (Night of Sevens), in which two celestial lovers are believed to reunite, and Lantern Festival Day, on which single folk venture out in search of love, assisted by matchmakers.
In fact, the Roman Catholic church is one of the few not so easily enticed by Valentine's Day. In 1969, the Church had a look at the list of saints and pruned it of those it couldn't be sure had ever existed or lived a life of holiness. None of the St Valentines made the cut.
So this February 14th you might instead want to celebrate the officially sanctioned feast day of St Methodius and his brother St Cyril. Together, they are the patron saints of Bulgaria. Instead of an overpriced bunch of roses, why not give your lover something far more appropriate; a small apartment on the Black Sea sounds about right.
The Valentine File
Who is he?That's a question that has long occupied historians, given that there were several of them, but we know him now as the patron saint of love and (we kid you not) greetings card companies.
Why is he in the news?If you're asking that question, then it's probably too late to get a dinner reservation.
Most appealing characteristic?Once a year, his memory encourages the world to spread a little love around
Least appealing characteristic?But that love must be spread at three times what it costs any other day of the year
Most likely to say?"Get your roses, €50 a dozen!"
Least likely to say?"Love? It's overrated."