Talks are taking place with the board of the International Allocation and Reallocation of Important and Strategic Dates Consortium (IRIS, previously known as ROSE: the Reallocation Of Some Events group, and before that HYACINTH: Ha! Yet Another Card Initiative Now Thought Historic) for the date of St Valentine’s Day to be moved.
St Valentine of Rome, to give the saint his full name, has always been celebrated on February 14th, the traditional day of St Valentine’s. This seems to make sense, and seems to have always been the case.
However, things are not as they seem.
Knowledge of St Valentine is sketchy at best. He’s been written out of some church traditions, yet kept in others. Since the Middle Ages, the saint has been associated with love and courtship, on and around February 14th, however some people are now saying the actual date should be July 23rd.
Another confusing thing is, given the fact that Valentine was a Roman, theories are emerging that February was actually created just for the fourteenth. During Roman times, January and February never existed until they were introduced into the calendar. Before then, there was a gap, a void, between December and March.
Here’s an image of part of an early Roman calendar:
This year, 2016, February has 29 days, as it’s a Leap Year, and the extra day is needed to keep things in check with the orbit of the Sun. IRIS initially considered moving Valentine’s Day to February 29th but have since changed their minds, and are now looking for a date currently outside of February completely: February 32nd.
IRIS advise that, unlike the early Roman calendars, this date isn’t set in stone, and the talks are ongoing. They are also state that they are considering moving February 29th to April, and June 1st to October.
Exactly when these changes will take place is to be determined. When the consortium used the name ROSE, they discussed the removal of the letter Z from the alphabet, but that is currently still in use.
More will be reported on these changes as and when they become available.
This has been a Beyond the Sphere special report.
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