The reason for the relics of St. Valentine. Which was located until 1990 inside the Catholic Church of Mytilene, the “Frankoklisia”, on Ermou Street, under the Holy Altar. In 1990, they were transferred by the then vicar of the Catholic Church of Mytilene, a Franciscan monk Fr. Torquato Morini, as due to the lack of crew of the Church, he no longer resided on the island, but in Athens and occasionally served Mytilene as well.
Some parts of these relics were placed in the chapel of the Capuchin Order, dedicated to Saints Francis and Clare, at 7 Guilford Street, Victoria Square in Athens, and some others are said to have been sent to the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Rome. From where they had started their journey to the East two centuries ago… Last year on such days they returned to Mytilene to the renovated Catholic Church of Mytilene. And from this year they are an occasion for events in honor of the Saint of lovers who want to be Saint… Mytilene.
According to Catholic hagiology, the probably elder Valentine was arrested in Rome when Claudius II, also called Goth, was emperor. After being tortured, he was executed by beheading on February 14, 268 in the Via Flaminia. His companions then collected his blood in a glass vial and buried his body with the glass vial in the catacombs of St. Priscilla.
As stated by Dimitris Papadakis – Perithorakis, who has written a relevant study, the dead body of St. Valentine was, over time, somehow “forgotten” like a relic, since almost daily new martyrs were buried in these catacombs and for several centuries. However, the memory of the Martyrdom of Saint Valentine remained vivid, especially in the local Church of Rome.
The remains in Mytilene
For the second time after 1815, the remains of Saint Valentine are found in 1907 in Mytilini. The Catholic Community of Mytilene was numerous at the time with members attending church continuously in the Catholic church of Theotokos on Ermou Street, which was managed by the Monastic Order of the Franciscan Elassos, before it passed to the management of the other Monastic Order, the also Franciscan Capuchins.
The Catholic community of Mytilene, then ecclesiastically, belonged to the Catholic bishop of Chios, and he in turn to the Catholic archbishop of Smyrna.
How the remains reached Mytilene remains unknown. It is believed that with the death of the parish priest and noble John the Baptist Longarini di S. Costanzo, the relics of St. Valentine were bequeathed to one of his relatives, who in turn bequeathed them to one of his descendants, who probably emigrated to Mytilene around the end of the 19th century.
It is a fact, and indeed based on official documents, that on April 26, 1907, the then Catholic archbishop of Smyrna, Domenikos Maregos, during a pastoral visit to Mytilene, performed – perhaps upon request – an autopsy and authentication of the remains of Saint Valentine. The relics had been placed under the central sanctuary of the Catholic church of Mytilene, which had probably been given for safekeeping by their owner to the then vicar of Mytilene.
And suddenly in Athens
In 1990, when the parish priest of the Catholic church of Mytilene, aged already, was the Franciscan monk Fr. Torquato Morini, he decided to move the holy relics from the church of Mytilene to the church of Saints Francis and Clare of the Italians, at 7 Guilfordou Street, in Athens. For many, the “secret” of the then vicar of Mytilene, Father Torquatos, regarding the existence of these relics in the Mytilene temple, which he had not shared with anyone, remains inexplicable, and indeed at a time when the reputation of St. Valentine as the patron saint of lovers it was beginning to reach the ends of the earth. Something which, if nothing else, would also be a glory for his empty and forgotten Catholic church in Mytilene.
Perhaps the Monk wanted the Saint not to be associated with the commercialization that had then begun to be associated with him. So he literally secretly brought the remains from Mytilene to Athens. With all “mystery”, he placed them under the Holy Altar of the inner chapel of the temple of the Italians in Victoria Square in Athens. In 1994 and after the death of Fr. Torquatos, the reliquary was carefully “hidden” by Dimitrios Papadakis Perithorakis. Even the glass of the reliquary was covered with cloth, and the box with the relics gave the impression that it contained rather some sacred vessels than the relics of the now world-famous Martyr Valentine!
Those – few – who know of their existence used to pass by the Catholic chapel in the bustling Victoria Square on February 14 and receive something like a “gift” of a rose. In Mytilini, the Catholic “Fragoklesia” where Saint Valentine rested for a century remained closed.
Festival
In recent years and given the renovation of the church and the revival of the Catholic Community of Mytilini, the relics of St. Valentine returned to Mytilini and there was an attempt by the then Municipality of Lesvos to establish a festival but it did not have the same continuity
Sources:
1. New Advent Encyclopedia (www.newadvent.org)
2. Patron Saints Index (www.catholic-forum.com/saints/indexsnt.htm)
3. Oxford Dictionary of Saints
4. “Saint Valentine of Athens” by D. Papadakis – Perathorakis, “Kalos Typos” Publications