St. Valentine Was a Criminal

St. Valentine by Jacques Callot

CEFR Level B2-C1

At least, if you believe in obeying laws that violate your religious beliefs. 

There are few confirmed facts about the person or persons who became known as St. Valentine. There is a legend that Valentine was a priest or bishop in the 3rd century who secretly married soldiers and the women they lived with (or men of an age to be conscripted and the women they lived with). The men were forbidden from marrying because the Roman emperor thought unmarried men made better soldiers. Because St. Valentine broke the law by performing these marriages, he was executed. This legend is reported on the Catholic Answers website and repeated by Wikipedia, Britannica, etc. 

Either way, the legend shows St. Valentine as someone who broke the law, and helped others to break the law, because of his religious convictions. 
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Who else from history lived out their beliefs, regardless of what the law required? 
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Be thoughtful about whether or not you comment with a name and brief bio. To protect people still living and the families of people recently living, let’s keep the people mentioned here firmly in the realm of history and be thoughtful about the international nature of the internet.

For comments related to the religious application of this topic, read this post on my Substack: The Variety Page Limited.