It’s funny that so many people consider the anniversary of the beheading of a man the most romantic day of the year. February 14th is when the guy now known today as Saint Valentine was killed and became a martyr for the Catholic Church. He is the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers, another fact not very well known by most.
Definitely the most celebrated catholic saint by the non-religious, St. Valentine has been associated with romance for centuries. I was very surprised to find that his remains are displayed just a few yards from where I’ve been living for the last five years, at St. Anton’s church.
Well, that is at least one his many skulls.
The thing is that this saint’s life is surrounded by mystery and there are conflicting stories about who he was. There are at least three people that could have been St. Valentine. There is so little known about this man that in 1969 the Catholic Church crossed him off from the General Roman Calendar, which is the official list that indicates celebration days for saints, because nothing from his life can be corroborated. No one knows who he really was and there are legends that point to at least 3 different people. That hasn’t stopped people from going on dates and buying flowers on the day of his decapitation.
On Hortaleza St., the church is located in the neighborhood of Chueca, famous for its LGTB+ activism.
Built in 1792, St. Anton’s church was built as an annex to the lepper’s hospital.
It’s very common to find saint relics in churches all around Europe, and quite frequently there are sets of remains in more that one place. Obviously these men and women didn’t have more than one earthly body. In years since the middle ages, there has been times where relics were an important icon and a specific reason for people to visit a certain parish. This meant more money. This also meant that relics were forged. Very few of the bones used as relics have any sort proof of origin. Who knows who’s bodies those are?
The Church
I decided to take a peek at what I always called the Wi-Fi church. I have walked passed this place hundreds of times and what always stood out to me was the amount of high tech gadgets inside this 18th century church. St. Anton’s becomes very popular on January 17th, it’s patron’s day, when people are invited to take their pets to be blessed. It is also a known place for the poor and homeless to receive donations and have access to television and the internet.
An LED panel shows photographs of priests and images of christian faith in the window of St. Anton’s church.
At the entrance I was met with a donation vending machine. You can buy prayers.
Once I enter the church, a credit card donation machine. You just type un how much you want to give and tap your card on it.
Each 300-year-old column has a television set, placed over comunal tables where those in need can dine.
Shrines share space with large screens. Hundreds of kilos of donations are placed at tables inside the church.
The Relics
At the end of the the 18th century, just about when St. Anton’s church was built, King Charles IV of Spain received the remains of St. Valentine as a gift from the Pope. You know back in the day when you forgot to buy your host a gift and would just take a dead body from the catacombs of the Vatican? And then the person doesn’t really like it and regifts it? That’s what could have happened here. Better than socks, I guess.
The remains of St. Valentine were kept in a safe place lost in the attic of the church until priest Francisco Martínez Villar found them in 1990 and displayed to the public, where they remain to this day in the same glass urn they were found in.
Saint Valentine, martir, patron of lovers, is written on the urn. A skull and a pile of bones are clearly visible. Clearly. You can see in the picture. Why am I describing this?
Father Ángel, the very popular current priest of St. Anton’s on his very first St. Valentine day as head of the church created a new tradition: to write a message on a ribbon to someone you love and tie it on the bars under St. Valentine’s bones.
Beside the relics of St. Valentine is a reproduction Goya’s 1819 painting La última Comunión de San José de Calasanz. The original, that used to hang in its place is now in a museum.