February 19, 2024

Historic Valentine with Dr. Dan van Voorhis

22 minutes

Is Valentine's Day a Hallmark Holiday? We sit down with Dr. Dan van Voorhis from "Christian History Almanac" and ask him about the history of St. Valentine's Day from a church history perspective. He shares with us 3 different historic people named "Valentine" in the 200s, when Christianity was illegal in Rome. He shares how the first valentine letter on the record was one of condolances, not romantic love, and how these stories were tied into the martyrdom of the early church.

We talk about the facinating Georgian vs Julian calendar, and how that effects our perception of the season of Valentine's Day on the church calendar--as it used to be in the peak of spring, and how it started overlapping with fertility holidays.

Throughout history, Christians used saints days to keep their calendar, to avoid using pagan gods' names in their calendar, and further down the line, Puritans didn't use either, and used only numbers in their calendar "15th day of the 10th month..." We go down a fun rabbit trail discussing the struggle of the historian to figure out which calendar each reformational character used in their letters, and calendars were often determined by Catholic or anti-Catholic loyalties.

So if you want to be historically accurate, you'd celebrate Valentine's Day on February 27th, and send out a bunch of condolance cards. :) Just kidding. It was a just for fun conversation full of fun facts and Dan always brings the encouragment from a historical perspective that there is nothing new under the sun, and that the rumors of grace are true, and everything will be ok.

Show Notes: