The sacred body of St Valentine

Writing about the Sacred Body of St Valentine at Balzan, Mr Joe Felice Pace (The Sunday Times, February 13) gives the impression that the relic at that village is the same one of the original St Valentine who was martyred in Rome (or Terni, as there are two martyrs bearing the same name) in AD 14, and whose life was described by the Rev. Albert Butler (1710-73) in his Lives of the Saints. This is definitely not so, even if at Balzan his feast day in held on February 14.

Sacred Bodies (Corpi Santi), which used to be exhumed from ancient cemeteries in or around Rome, were usually nameless. When donated to individuals or churches for veneration, they used to be given appropriate names (i.e. renaming) by the Church after some important saint to help spread their devotion among the local people.

That's why in Gozo we have so many Furtuns and Kuruns, because Gozitan parents used to name their sons after St Fortunatus and St Coronatus, both of them Sacred Bodies (Corpi Santi) venerated in Gozo.

Similar devotions are found also in Malta, for example, at Naxxar many sons and daughters are named Victor/ia, not only in honour of Our Lady of Victories, but also out of devotion to St Victor, whose Sacred Body is venerated at the parish church of Naxxar.