By 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius reportedly declared Feb. 14 the Feast of Saint Valentine in an attempt to replace the pagan health and fertility holiday — the Feast of Lupercalia — with a Christian ...

Every 14th of February, Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated. Philadelphia news 24/7: Watch NBC10 free wherever you are.

Saint Valentine's feast could have been a replacement for Lupercalia, but Lenski said there's no hard proof of this. A lot about this day is very mysterious.

"Some historians place the origin of the Feast of Saint Valentine in ancient Rome, in a pagan festival called Lupercalia, which is celebrated on the 15th of February," the magazine stated.

The Feast of Saint Valentine (Saint Valentine's Day) has been observed each 14 February since then. In the high middle ages (1000-1250 AD), Saint Valentine became an icon for love and romance.

Valentine’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Valentine, originated as a Christian celebration to honor a martyr named Valentine. It is unclear which saint the feast celebrated initially, as there are ...

In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as the First Feast Day of Saint Valentine. Whether this was purely a move to honor a Saint—or a strategic effort to Christianize the unsavory pagan ...

He declared Feb. 14 as the feast day of a St. Valentine, who had been martyred about 200 years before. But that theory emerged in an 1807 book without any evidence to support the connection, ...

However, there were several saints named Valentine, making it difficult to determine which one is the true namesake. Most legends point to either Saint Valentine of Rome or Saint Valentine of Terni.

This week, Margaret Gleeson and Jimmy Moynihan went to St. Valentine’s shrine ahead of the big feast day to have their engagement blessed by Bishop Denis Nulty of Kildare and Leighlin. Both ...

Saint Valentine's feast could have been a replacement for Lupercalia, but Lenski said there's no hard proof of this. A lot about this day is very mysterious.