Since the foundation of the Church, the fallen world has been striving to take her over, to distort her saving truth, to bring her to its fallen standards, to weaken her saving power. This is called secularization in our ecclesiastical language and is perhaps one of the worst challenges, perhaps the worst, in our very difficult era, where the secular, materialistic way of life dominates.
Such a shocking case of attempted secularization, belittling of the saving truth of the Church, and trivializing of holiness is the annual "celebration" of a non-existent, fake, fabricated "saint", who came to us as "loan", among the many, from the heretical West and established by the commercial world. The reason for the notorious "Saint" Valentine, whom they defined as the "patron saint of lovers" and "celebrated", in an incredibly pompous manner, in 14 February.
This is undoubtedly a revival of an ancient pagan festival, the pagan "god" of Love, who was considered the "primordial god", who "gave birth" the later generations of "gods"[1] and were celebrated in an orgiastic way these days[2]Also on February 14 and 15, the "Dionysia", as a "celebration of love and fertility, as a worship of the awakening of nature with the coming of spring"»[3]During the same period, the Romans also celebrated in an orgiastic way the “Lupercalia”, “a pagan festival dedicated to fertility and love. According to it, many young men ran naked and beat with some kind of strap anyone they found in front of them – mainly women – in order to transmit fertility to them. Also, young girls put their names in a box and young men, after choosing a name, mated for a year with the girl whose name they drew. This festival, however, was banned by the Church and specifically by Pope Gelasius, in the 5th century, as pagan. It was replaced by a celebration of the memory of Saint Valentine on February 14»[4].
It is known that the West was never able to detach itself from pre-Christian paganism, which it largely transferred to Christianity, seriously altering and falsifying its teachings. It seems that the establishment of the feast of "saint" Valentine's Day, during the Middle Ages, is a classic case of the revival of the above pagan holidays, with a Christian guise. It is reported that "In the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most famous saints in England and France. In Great Britain, in particular, Valentine's Day began to become popular in the mid-17th century, and by the mid-18th century, lovers used to exchange love notes."»[5].
However, his celebration took on great proportions and became the most popular "saint" of seculars, in the last century, by merchants, who imposed it to increase their sales, since it "custom" predicts a manic exchange of gifts on his feast day.
Some want him "saint" Valentine, a real person, saint and martyr of the ancient Church, who supposedly lived and worked on the 3rdο AD century (not
(by chance) in Italy. He was a cleric and secretly married men and women, violating an imperial edict that prohibited marriages for young people in order to avoid military service. For this he was beheaded. However, no historical testimony or hagiography of the ancient Church mentions such a saint. Also, no historical source mentions an imperial edict prohibiting marriage. This is undoubtedly a fiction of those who have an interest in its celebration.
But, even if there was a saint named Valentine, he could not have been related to this man. "saint", to protect indiscriminately those in love, legal and illegal, even prostitutes, adulterers, homosexuals, who declare themselves in love with their sexual partners. Especially in our Orthodox Church, in the true, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, there is no saint with this name, much less be a protector (also) of illegal love!
In contrast to the true Church of Christ, Western Christianity accepts its existence and honors and celebrates it as it is! Those of us who know Theology and especially its branch "Symbolic" and "History of Dogmas", we can understand why, it might honor such a "saint", like many others, with paradoxical and largely anti-Christian qualities.
Western Christianity, after being cut off from the one and indivisible Church of Christ, became corrupted to the greatest extent, losing the authenticity of the Church. Among its many errors, it also distorted the biblical and patristic concept of salvation, which it considers as "moral improvement" and not as a deification by grace, as our Church teaches. The deified person is not considered a saint, but the "ethical", ο "good man"", the one who has the "a good testimony from the outside", and this is because, according to the scholastic "theology"Union with God is impossible and our only relationship with Him is "moral purity", which "satisfies" divine justice. Besides, according to the extremely blasphemous "On the satisfaction of divine justice" faith, as "salvation" means the restoration of ""you are eaten", because of human sin, divine justice. Since this "restored" Salvation has also been accomplished![6] In this case, whoever "loves" indiscriminately, even if this "love" contains sinfulness, it is "good Christian" and in fact it has the "protection'Of "saint of love". This is how the presence of "saint" Valentine's Day, in "sagittarius""of Western Christianity.
But, as the late Professor wrote Father G. Metallinos, who are "The Church as Orthodoxy does not seek to make man “moral” in the secular sense of the term. A good man is one thing, and a Christian is another. The Orthodox Christian strives to keep the commandments of God, not in the sense of a code of good conduct (savoir vivre), but to be led, with the cooperation of the Grace of God, to the ethics in Christ, which springs from his heart as “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22) and “water springing up into eternal life” (Jn. 4:14). […] The heretics who circulate among us see the commandments of God in a moral sense, they want to become “good people”, as atheists and non-Christians, followers of the
religions (religions) of the world. The Orthodox believer, however, does not seek to become simply “good” and “moral”, but a Saint, to be united with Christ and through him with the entire Holy Trinity, to become a “temple of God” (1 Cor. 3:16 etc.), because then he will be “true”, like our God (1 John 5:20) and truly a fellow human being, a “neighbor” and a brother to another when the Grace of God (His “kingdom”) will dwell in his heart and his love will not be “the love of sinners” (Luke 6:33), i.e. calculating and self-interested, but selfless, like the love of God, which “seeks not its own” (Rom. 13:5) and therefore “never fails” (13:8).. Saints are, according to the holy Damascene: “the living temples of God, the living tabernacles of God”, because “through the mind God has made their bodies holy”[7]. “Let us not forget: Saints recognize Saints! The history of the Church teaches us that the recognition of holiness has never been arbitrary and emotional, nor has it ever been based on a person’s good reputation, morality, or even good deeds, but on tangible and documented, that is, God-given, examples of the reality of deification. Deification, however, transforms the nature of man and does not simply “improve” his character. And this is because, according to Saint Gregory Palamas: “God surrounds all of us in our values, but the Saints surround all of us completely in God, perceiving God in all of themselves.”[8]. That is: "All God surrounds all the worthy, and all the Saints surround all God completely, having taken God instead of themselves."»[9].
Therefore, according to the correct view of holiness, as expressed above by the venerable Fr. G. Metallinos, the Western "saint» Valentine, the "saint of love", has no relation to the true saints of our Church and of course with genuine love and true romance, as they are experienced within it.
Love is considered the "mother of virtues" and is an idiom of the way of existence of the Triune God, since "God is love" (1 John 4:16). But the "love" which is "protects" ο "saint" Valentine is not the sacrificial Christian love, the one that Christ taught and showed with His sacrificial example, ""Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down their life for their friends." (John 15:13). Genuine Christian love is the "emptying" of man from the "I" of and the integral "giving" at "rather". On the contrary, the secular type "love", like the one that "protects" ο "saint" Valentine's Day, it has a transactional nature, someone gives "love" to take. And even worse, this worldly "love" is confused with eroticism and largely with sexism and sin. They give, for example, "eternal vows of love" and adulterers, prostitutes, homosexuals to their lovers!
We see this clearly in the annual pompous "celebrations" of "saint" Valentine's Day, where "celebrants" are, primarily, those who experience false love, sinful eroticism! Also characteristic is the way "celebration" of "protector" her, with lavish gifts (often provocative lingerie), hugs, flowers, quantities of sweets, noisy
partying, eating and drinking, drinking wine, with the seal of committing illegal sexual intercourse, "for the good"»! Needless to say, this kind of "love" It usually has an expiration date because it is not genuine love!
One such "celebration" has no relation whatsoever to the celebration of the saints of our Church. This is an externalization of a strong egoism, an opportunity to awaken and satisfy instinctive urges, a fake and temporary festive mood. On the contrary, the honor of our saints is an experience, an overflow of faith in God and a longing to become imitators and partakers of those who were made worthy of perfection, sanctification and deification by grace. We honor the true saints, not with gifts, sweets, flowers, debauchery and the commission of sin, but with church attendance, Holy Communion and a promise to change our mind and way of life.
To be fair, there are those who "they celebrate» him "saint" Valentine, having pure and true love, like many faithful husbands, faithful Christians, perhaps, due to ignorance, due to imitation, not knowing that this is a revival of ancient paganism "celebration" and that it is promoted and maintained by the commercial world. This is also the purpose of the writing and publication of our present monograph.
We conclude by noting that our Church is not opposed to innocent and pure love, but to deceitful and sinful love. God placed erotic attraction in human nature to constitute the strongest social cohesion and, of course, the creation of new human souls, new images of God, destined for salvation and theosis, with the blessed union of men and women, through marriage, with the "great mystery" (Eph.5:32), according to the apostle Paul. Also, according to the Fathers of our Church, human love is a type of divine love, of the eternal thirst and longing of each soul to be united with God.
We believers have no need for mythical and fabricated "patron saints", as a revival of the pre-Christian nightmarish pagan past, from commercial considerations, because we have existing, living and genuine models of true sacrificial love, the saints of our Church, holy couples, who experienced the "unhypocritical love", which "He does not seek his own" and "never fails" (1 Cor.13:1-8).
One of these is the holy, beloved and blessed couple of Saints Aquila and Priscilla, which is honored on February 13, who are praised by Apostle Paul as his valuable collaborators, "in Christ Jesus", who for the sake of, "they have suffered their own necks", and whom he pleases, both he, "but also all the churches of the nations" (Rom.16:3-4). Our Church has distinguished in their faces the ideal spouses and for this reason she presents them as a model of an ideal and blessed marital union, to which modern spouses can aspire. In fact, a few years ago, the blessed Archbishop Christodoulos, in order to distract the faithful from the pagan-commercial "feast" of the non-existent and false "Saint" Valentine, proposed that they honor, in his place, the aforementioned saints, as protectors of conjugal love and the family.
[1] Hesiod, Theogony, p. 120
[2] https://designmagazine.gr/agios-valentinos-erws-psyxi-i-istoria-apo-tin-arxaiotita-sto-simera/
[3] Where above
[4] https://www.maxmag.gr/afieromata/agios-o-erotas/
[5] Where above
[6] See more in the book by Professor A. Theodorou: Basic Dogmatic Teaching, published by Apostolic Ministry, p. 131, etc.
[7] (Explanation of the Orthodox Faith, D(15)88. PG 94, 1164 B ff.)
[8] (For the Sacredly Retired 3, 1, 27)
[9]http://www.diakonima.gr/2013/11/08/%CE%B7-%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%85%CF%84%CF%8C%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%84%CE%B1-%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85-%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%85/
photo coombesy, https://pixabay.com
