![]() ![]() Nevertheless, young Irish lovers are far more inclined to spend Valentine’s Day at photogenic spots in Dublin that offer superior backdrops for social media images. ( Here’s your guide to an Earth-friendly Valentine’s Day.) “Newly engaged couples often have their rings blessed there on the day there are even occasional proposals at the shrine.” “People write messages of love and leave them on the shrine,” Byrne says. He says Valentine’s Day is the only time the relics receive many visitors. Valentine and instead come here to shove their fingers inside an old, if renowned, sewer cover, called the Mouth of Truth.ĭublin tour guide Alan Byrne, who has a degree in history and did his thesis on the Catholic Church, says Valentine’s remains are well known among locals but absent from the city’s tourist trail. Yet those tourist hordes have either no interest or no knowledge of this relic of St. ![]() There, inside a gilded box, is a skull decorated with a crown of flowers. In Rome, crowds of foreigners queue each day at the sixth-century Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Valentine’s remains have far less magnetism. But people also were willing to believe saints could provide relics in miraculous proportions, so that many churches could claim to have a particular saint’s body.” The odd case of Valentine’s remains Theologians and others were critical from the start about the trade in relics, beginning with Augustine, if not before. It brought customers into churches, pilgrims to town, and money into church coffers. “The church leadership pretty much let the acquisition and use of relics go on without much regulation. “The Vatican doesn’t take a position on bodies,” she says. And the Roman Catholic Church is mute on the matter. “It was easy to rewrite the hagiography to include the saint’s presence in a particular place.”Īlthough it seems they cannot all possess Valentine’s remains, there’s no known competition or animosity between these churches, Bitel adds. “The better known the saint, the more pilgrims come to venerate him or her,” she says. Churches benefit greatly from any concrete link to a saint, Bitel explains. Given all this uncertainty, it is understandable many European locations claim ownership of Valentine’s remains. He says many colorful stories now linked to St. Valentine, Kelly says Chaucer’s writing instigated the tradition of lovers marking this annual feast. The author of Chaucer and the Cult of St. The first mention of Valentine’s Day as a celebration of passion was made more than a thousand years later by British author Geoffrey Chaucer, according to Henry Kelly, a professor in history and theology at UCLA. ( Learn more about how Valentine’s Day wasn’t always about love.) Instead, February 14 began as a religious feast marking the execution of a St. There also is no evidence that any of these saints performed acts that promoted romance. It seems unlikely both of those Valentines were beheaded more probable is that this gruesome incident was a single legend which became splintered, Bitel says. The other was a bishop of Terni, near Rome in central Italy, who also was decapitated by Gothicus. Another was a priest beheaded by Roman Emperor Gothicus. One of these Valentines perished in Africa. Historic texts show three saints named Valentini died on February 14 during the third century, with little known about each, according to Lisa Bitel, a professor of religion and history at the University of Southern California and one of the world’s leading experts on St. His legend is probably a mélange of the lives of several Italian holy men named Valentine and likely none of them actually inspired the annual lovers’ celebration. His tale is so murky that, despite being a recognized saint, in 1969 he was erased from the General Roman Calendar-the liturgical almanac that marks the dates of saint celebrations-due to the paucity of reliable information about his life. This lack of consensus underscores the deep mysteries surrounding Valentine. Where his true physical relics lay is unclear. ( Fall in love with 10 heart-shaped places around the world.) All in all, a dozen Catholic churches in Europe trade heavily on their claimed ownership of the remains of this celebrity saint. There his relics draw believers to the Basilica di San Valentino, the earliest version of which was supposedly built over his tomb. Then there’s Terni, reputedly Valentine’s Italian hometown. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |