The Story of Saint Valentine: From Martyrdom to Sainthood

The story of Valentine's Day was born from a tragedy.

We are in the 4th century AD and Valentino converted a multitude of pagan intellectuals of the time, in a complicated historical period because the people were plagued by persecutions against Christians at the hands of the emperor Aurelian, even though they had passed thirty years since Constantine's Edict of Toleration, edict that validated Christianity as a legitimate religion.

His death was marked by the celebration of the marriage between the Christian Serapia, seriously affected by a very advanced stage of tuberculosis, and of the pagan Roman legionary Sabinus. The young man begged the bishop to bless their union, a union that cost the lovers their lives. This was the straw that broke the camel's back: the Senate of Rome decided to intervene. In the night, they arrest Valentino and then behead him in great secrecy, in a completely illicit manner, in Rome in 347.

As the centuries passed, Valentine became the Saint par excellence, protector of lovers and bulwark of love in the most universal sense of the term.. Even today, the altar of St. Valentine (located in the basilica of Terni) where the remains of the saint are kept, It is a pilgrimage destination of couples and not of believers coming from everywhere.