Today is the feast day of Cyril and Methodius (pictured above), the 9th century apostles of the Slavs. They were sent to preach the gospel in Moravia, and their knowledge of Slavonic made their mission a success. The Cyrillic alphabet, which brought writing to the Slavs, is named after Cyril, who may have invented it.
Today is St Valentine’s Day, as you may be aware. He was, supposedly, a 3rd century bishop who was tried in imperial Rome for his faith. When he healed the examining magistrate’s daughter of blindness, the Emperor realised that he was a holy man, and therefore ordered that he be taken outside the city before being beheaded. The link with sending Valentine cards happened purely because in the Middle Ages it was believed that birds began to pair on 14 February.
Today in 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa (death sentence) on Salman Rushdie for the dishonour shown to Muhammad in Rushdie‘s book, The Satanic Verses. The book’s title refers to a passage alleged to have been edited out of Muhammad’s original Qur’an because, inspired by Satan, it recommended praying to God through the mediation of three lesser gods. The novel involves a completely unconnected prophet who is inspired to write some completely unconnected verses by a completely unconnected spiritual embodiment of evil.
Image: Wikimedia