Over the past decade or so, Bulgaria has seen a new addition to its calendar of festivities. On February 14, many of its citizens now mark St. Valentine’s Day by participating in the buying frenzy. Flowers, chocolates, stuffed teddy bears and anything red or heart-shaped get purchased and given as token of love and affection.

The holiday, originally Catholic, has taken a hold on the world and grown largely secular and commercial. But in Bulgaria, it had the fortune of overlapping with another, older holiday that celebrates wine and drinking. And what better way to make a love confession or sweep someone off their feet than with the help of some red wine?

In Eastern Orthodoxy, February 14 is marked as the Day of St. Trifon, the patron saint of wine and vineyards and a kind of a local version of the Greek god Dionysus and the Roman Bacchus. Traditionally, St. Trifon is honoured throughout Bulgaria. In wine-making regions, whole villages go out to the vineyards and prune the vines in a blessing ritual for an abundant harvest. City folk, on the other hand, give their respects simply by engaging in some serious drinking.

The nature of the two holidays – the old and the new, allows them to be easily combined and they usually are. Only the extreme traditionalists insist on a separation that gives prominence to St. Trifon over St. Valentine.

The symbiosis in the Bulgarian holiday calendar may be confusing to foreigners, but the French will surely understand. “In water one sees one’s own face,” they say, “but in wine one beholds the heart of another.”

Just like Christian holidays and pagan rituals were merged during early Christian times, in Bulgaria February 14 celebrates different aspects of essentially the same thing – human happiness. Whether fuelled by love’s endorphins or by generous quantities of alcohol is a secondary matter.

For suggestions by BalkanTravellers.com on alternative ways to mark St. Valentine's Day in Sofia, visit our news piece.