Valentine's Day century. Popular modern sources claim links to unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St. Valentine's Day, but prior to Chaucer in the 14th century, there were no links between the saints named Valentinus and romantic love. In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13–15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier" or "the chaste Juno", was celebrated on February 13–14. Pope Gelasius I (492–496) abolished Lupercalia. Some researchers have theorized that Gelasius I
St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church (Philadelphia) room for a Catholic cemetery. St. Mary's and Old St. Joseph's remained a single parish until 1830. It was at St. Mary's, in 1782, that the first parish school connected to a Catholic church in America was opened. An interparochial school remains connected with the parish to this day. Members of the Continental Congress and other public figures attended services on occasion at the church, since it was the city's most prominent Catholic church at the time. Among them were George Washington and John Adams, who observed that the visual and musical splendor of the church encompassed "everything that can