All Saints

This article is about the Christian holiday. For other meanings see All Saints (disambiguation) and All Hallows (disambiguation) The festival of All Saints, also sometimes known as "All Hallows," or "Hallowmas" ("hallow" meaning "holy," and "mas" meaning "Mass"), is a feast celebrated in their honour. All Saints is also a Christian formula invoking all the faithful saints and martyrs, known or unknown.

The Roman Catholic holiday (Festum omnium sanctorum) falls on November 1, followed by All Souls Day on November 2, and is a Holy Day of Obligation, with a vigil and an octave. The Eastern Orthodox Church's All Saints is the first Sunday after Pentecost and as such marks the close of the Easter season.

Common commemorations by several churches of the deaths of martyrs began to be celebrated in the 4th century. The first trace of a general celebration is attested in Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost. This custom is also referred to in the 74th homily of John Chrysostom (407) and is maintained to the present day in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Irish also maintained this date, but the German church began the custom of celebrating it on November 1. (It was once commonly held to be fixed by the date of Samhain, but as Samhain was a pagan Irish feast, the German origin makes this claim dubious.) It spread from there until the date of festival was universally changed to November 1 by Pope Gregory III (731–741). He designated November 1 as the date of the anniversary of the consecration of a chapel in St. Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world". By the time of the reign of Charlemagne, the November festival of All Saints was widely celebrated. November 1 was decreed a day of obligation by the Frankish king Louis the Pious in 835 issued "at the instance of Pope Gregory IV and with the assent of all the bishops."

In Portugal, Spain and Mexico, ofrendas (offerings) are made on this day. In Spain, the play Don Juan Tenorio is traditionally performed. In Portugal and France, people offer flowers to dead relatives. In Poland and Germany, the tradition is to light candles and visit the graves of deceased relatives. In the Philippines, the day is spent visiting the graves of deceased relatives, where they offer prayers, lay flowers, and light candles, often in a picnic-like atmosphere. In English speaking countries, the festival is celebrated with the hymn "For All the Saints", set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The festival was retained after the Reformation in the calendar of the Church of England and in many Lutheran churches. In the Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden, it assumes a role of general commemoration of the dead (similar to the All Souls commemoration in the Eastern Orthodox Church that takes place two Saturdays before the beginning of Lent). In the Swedish calendar, the observance takes place on the first Saturday of November. In many Lutheran Churches however, the festival has fallen into disuse.

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