Do you know the history of Valentine's Day?
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February 14th is the official Valentine's Day, a date full of gifts, tokens of love and affection, where couples decide to do something special in honor of such a beautiful date, however its history is not very romantic to say, in Virtual Variety we tell you how this curious love holiday arises.
In the third century, the Roman Empire was advancing in its plans to "conquer" the world, the Emperor Claudius II needed to keep his soldiers busy, but he knew that if they got married they would not want to continue serving the Empire. So he thought about how to untie these men. His only solution was to prohibit the celebration of marriage among the youngest.
However, there was a priest named St. Valentine, who found such a prohibition illogical and unjust, without thinking twice, decided to challenge Claudius II by secretly marrying all the young men who longed to take such an important step in their lives. It is not known how many people he married, but there must have been many, the Emperor found out and did not take this news very well. He ordered this priest to be imprisoned for violating the prohibition and defying him.
The Emperor's soldiers imprisoned St. Valentine, while deciding what his punishment would be, one of the high ranking officers of Claudius II, challenged the priest to demonstrate his true "powers", the daughter of this officer was born blind, the challenge was to restore the girl's sight. Curious or illogical as it may seem, according to historical data, St. Valentine was able to return the sight to the young girl named Julia. However, the fact that he performed this miracle did not stop his condemnation. On February 14 of the year 270, Saint Valentine was executed. The young Julia, hurt and saddened by the death of the man who gave her back her sight, decided to plant next to the priest's tomb, an almond tree with pink flowers, which is where this tree comes from as a symbol of love and friendship.
But it was not until February 14 of the year 494, when Pope Gelasius I, designated this date as the official day of St. Valentine, the man who went above the "Law" to do what his heart dictated him to unite body and soul those in love, who wanted to marry. This beautiful and emotional holiday, which was included in the traditional liturgical calendar, was also celebrated by the Catholic Church for almost 15 centuries. Having performed these acts and dying for doing his job, made St. Valentine the patron saint of lovers.
As we could read about this curious but fascinating history, what we know today as the day of love and friendship, was not very similar to the past. It was not until the twentieth century when this date began to have another meaning for people and businesses. It became popular and the vast majority of people in the world, took it as a special day to make gifts or effective samples to their loved ones. We hope your Valentine's Day will culminate in a nice and pleasant way.
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Written Sources
This text was translated from Spanish to English thanks to the translator Deepl.
Hello, my friend
As always, you bring us an interesting story, this time about such a festive day. Without wanting to contradict or contradict those who enjoy giving on this day. I do not fail to see that the current popularization was enhanced by the propaganda of the industry that promotes consumerism.
In my opinion, every day should be filled with love and friendship, many evils would not happen.