Valentine Day 西方情人节简介,英文版.docVIP

What is Valentines Day? Valentines Day is a celebration of romantic love occurring annually on February 14.Although its origin is associated by legend with a Catholic saint named Valentine, the fact is Valentines Day is not a religious holiday and never really has been. Valentines Day has historical roots mainly in Greco-Roman pagan fertility festivals and the medieval notion that birds pair off to mate on February 14.The history of exchanging cards and other tokens of love on February 14 began to develop in England and France in the 14th and 15th centuries and became especially popular in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.Over the last decade or so, Valentines Day observance has even spread to the Far East, India, and the Middle East. What is the History of Valentines Day? The origin of associating the middle of February with love and fertility dates to ancient times. In ancient Athens, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, which was dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.In ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia, the festival of Lupercus (or Faunus), the god of fertility. As part of the purification ritual, the priests of Lupercus would sacrifice goats and a dog to the god, and after drinking wine, they would run through the streets of Rome striking anyone they met with pieces of the goat skin. Young women would come forth voluntarily for the occasion, believing that being touched by the goat skin would render them fertile. Young men would also draw names from an urn, choosing their blind date for the coming year. In 494 AD the Christian church under Pope Gelasius I appropriated the some aspects of the rite as the Feast of the Purification.In Christianity, at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early lives of the saints under the date of February 14. Two of the Valentines lived in Italy in the third century: one as a priest at Rome, th