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:This article is about the Christian holiday. For other meanings see All Saints (disambiguation)The festival of All Saints, also sometimes known as "All Hallows," or "Hallowmas," is a feast celebrated in honour of all the 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 festival of the first rank, with a vigil and an octave. The Eastern Orthodox Church's All Saints is the first Sunday after Pentecost and as such punctuates 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 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 origin of the festival of All Saints as celebrated in the West is, however, now said to be somewhat doubtful. On May 13 in 609 or 610Events October 4 Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas and becomes Emperor. The archangel Gabriel first appears to Muhammad (according to Islamic belief), reciting to him the first verses of surat Iqr (the day being more important than the year), Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at RomeThe Pantheon is a building in Rome which was originally built as a temple to all the gods of the Roman state religion, but has been a Christian church since the 7th century AD. It is the only building from the Greco-Roman world which is completely intact to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs, and the feast of the dedicatio Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres has been celebrated at Rome ever since. The chosen day, May 13, was a pagan observation of great antiquity, the culmination of three days of the Feast of the LemuresIn Roman religion, the Feast of the Lemures called the Lemuralia or Lemuria was a feast during which the ancient Romans performed rites to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes. The unwholesome and malevolent sprectres of, in which were propitiated the malevolent and restless spirits of all the dead. The medieval liturgiologists based the idea that this Lemuria festival was the origin of that of All Saints on identical dates and on the similar theme of all the dead. This connection has now been abandoned by Roman Catholics. Instead, the feast of All Saints is now traced to the foundation by Pope Gregory IIISaint Gregory III pope ( 731- 741), a Syrian by birth, succeeded Gregory II in March 731. His pontificate, like that of his predecessor, was disturbed by the iconoclastic controversy in the Byzantine Empire, in which he vainly invoked the intervention of ( 731Alternate use: Unit 731 Events Bede completes his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum February 11 Pope Gregory III succeeds Gregory II Births Deaths February 11 Pope Gregory II 731.- 741) of an oratory 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", with the day moved to November 1.
So far as the Western Church generally is concerned, the November festival of all the saints was already widely celebrated in the days of Charlemagne; it was made a day of obligation throughout the Frankish empire in 835, by a decree of Louis the Pious, issued "at the instance of Pope Gregory IV and with the assent of all the bishops," which confirmed its celebration on the 1st of November.
There are celebrations in Portugal, Spain and Mexico, where are common the ofrendas (offerings). In Portugal and France, people would (and continue to) offer flowers to dead relatives. The traditional Portuguese Halloween, known as dia das bruxas (witches' day) is observed in the night of April 30 to May 1; it is not related with All Saints Day and is not widely celebrated. In Poland, the tradition on this day (known as Zaduszki) is to light candles and visit the graves of deceased relatives.
The festival was retained after the Reformation in the calendar of the Church of England and in that of many of the Lutheran churches. In the latter, in spite of attempts at revival, it has fallen into disuse. 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 observance takes place on the first Saturday of November.
