47 Fun Facts About All Saints' Day

Which popular holiday falls on the vigil of All Saints' Day?

Halloween. The name is a Scottish shortening of All Hallows' Even, the evening before All Hallows, in which 'hallow' is an old word for a saint.

What is the name of the three-day season that includes All Saints' Day?

Allhallowtide. 'Hallow' is an old word for a saint and 'tide' an old word for a season, so the name simply means the time of all the saints; it runs from the eve of the feast to All Souls' Day.

For Catholics, All Saints' Day is a holy day of obligation, which means the faithful are required to do what?

Attend Mass. Church law names ten such days besides Sundays but lets each country's bishops drop some or move them to a Sunday, so the list differs around the world.

The Eastern Orthodox churches keep All Saints not in November but on which Sunday?

First Sunday after Pentecost. The Orthodox reasoning is that saints are the fruit of the Holy Spirit's descent at Pentecost, so the two feasts fall a week apart.

The Coptic Orthodox Church honours its saints not on November 1 but at which new-year feast?

Nayrouz. Coptic years are counted from AD 284, when the persecuting emperor Diocletian took power, so New Year's Day is also the day for remembering those who died for the faith.

What festal rank does All Saints' Day hold in Catholicism?

Solemnity. It is the highest rank in the Roman calendar, above feasts and memorials, so when November 1 falls on a Sunday the saints take precedence over the ordinary Sunday.

The celebration of All Saints' Day begins on the evening before with which service of the daily office?

Vespers. The Church's greatest days are kept from sundown the evening before, echoing the Genesis refrain 'evening came, and morning followed'.

In Catholic theology, the day commemorates all who have attained what?

The beatific vision. It means seeing God face to face in heaven, and Catholic teaching counts everyone who has reached it as a saint, which is why the feast honours saints 'known and unknown'.

Those in heaven are traditionally called the Church what?

Triumphant. The image is military: Christians on earth are the Church militant, soldiers still struggling against sin, so those who have reached heaven have won their triumph.

Which ancient Roman building did Pope Boniface IV consecrate as a church in 609 or 610?

Pantheon. Becoming a church is what saved it: in use ever since, the temple once dedicated to all the gods is among the best preserved of ancient Rome's buildings.

Rome's forerunner of All Saints' Day, kept on May 13, shared its date with which pagan festival of restless ghosts?

Lemuria. On its nights, the poet Ovid says, a Roman householder rose at midnight and threw black beans behind him, chanting nine times that with them he bought off the family ghosts.

Which European capital was wrecked by an earthquake on All Saints' Day in 1755, as crowds filled its churches?

Lisbon. Because of the feast much of the city was in church when the quake struck; the buildings fell on the worshippers, and fires burned for about six days.

Which Northumbrian scholar at Charlemagne's court was keeping All Saints' Day on November 1 by 800?

Alcuin. Schooled at York, he became the leading teacher at Charlemagne's court and wrote to Arno of Salzburg in favour of the November feast, so he may have helped carry the date to the Continent.

Which son and successor of Charlemagne made the November 1 feast a day of obligation across the Frankish Empire?

Louis the Pious. He acted at the urging of Pope Gregory IV, and the date he fixed across his empire is the one Western churches still keep.

Which Celtic festival did James Frazer argue lay behind the November 1 date?

Samhain. The historian Ronald Hutton disagrees: he argues it marked summer's end, not a festival of the dead, and that ancient feasts for the dead fell in spring.

Which work by Michelangelo did the pope inaugurate on All Saints' Day in 1512?

Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo finished four years of work that October, and Pope Julius II, nephew of the Sixtus who gave the chapel its name, opened it on the feast.

What is the name for a prolongation of a feast, which All Saints' Day once had?

Octave. Pope Sixtus IV gave All Saints' Day one in the 15th century, but in today's Roman calendar only Easter and Christmas are still kept for eight days.

What is the liturgical colour for All Saints' Day in the Catholic Church?

White. Red is the usual colour for saints who died for their faith, but All Saints' Day, which also honours the many who did not, is kept in the colour of joy.

Which 18th-century preacher wrote in his journal that All Saints' Day was 'a festival I truly love'?

John Wesley. The founder of Methodism rejected prayers to saints, yet he scolded those too wary to give God 'solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints'.

Which passage from the Sermon on the Mount is the Gospel reading in Catholic churches on All Saints' Day?

The Beatitudes. Their run of 'Blessed are' sayings, on the poor in spirit, the merciful and the peacemakers, reads as a portrait of the unsung holiness the feast honours.

Which composer wrote Sine Nomine, the familiar tune for "For All the Saints"?

Ralph Vaughan Williams. He wrote the tune for The English Hymnal of 1906, displacing the Victorian melody the hymn had been sung to, and gave it a Latin title meaning 'without name'.

The phrase 'the communion of saints', the belief behind All Saints' Day, comes from which Christian text?

The Apostles' Creed. The phrase means that the living and the dead form one body in which the good of each is shared with the others, the idea behind asking saints for their prayers.

In the Church of England, All Saints' Day is ranked as what?

Principal Feast. Only nine days hold that rank, Christmas Day and Easter Day among them, and on each one Holy Communion must be celebrated in every cathedral and parish church.

In Lutheran churches, the eve of All Saints' Day is also kept as which commemoration?

Reformation Day. Tradition holds that Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on that very eve in 1517, and much of northern and eastern Germany keeps the anniversary as a public holiday.

Which braided loaf is the traditional All Saints' Day gift in Austria?

Allerheiligenstriezel. Godparents give the plaited loaf to their godchildren, and Vienna's bakers once handed them free to regular customers, a custom they gave up in 1901.

Which flower do Belgians and the French traditionally place on graves for the day?

Chrysanthemum. It is one of the few flowers at its best in early November, and the link with graves is now so strong that in France it is a faux pas to give one as a gift.

What is All Saints' Day called in France?

La Toussaint. The feast gives its name to the two-week autumn break in French schools, les vacances de la Toussaint, so for families the word also means holiday time.

Which of these German states keeps All Saints' Day as a public holiday?

Bavaria. Five states in the west and south take the day off, and they class it as a 'silent day' on which public entertainment has to respect the day's serious character.

Legend has Martin Luther nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in which German town?

Wittenberg. The timing suited the church: its famous collection of relics went on display for the feast, the biggest day of its year.

What is the Polish name for All Souls' Day, the day after All Saints'?

Zaduszki. The name is roughly 'the day of prayers for the souls'; because only November 1 is a day off in Poland, most families light their grave candles on All Saints' Day instead.

Portuguese children go door to door for cakes and sweets in which All Saints' tradition?

Pão-por-Deus. The name means 'bread for God': on the morning of November 1 children knock on doors and at shops, say the phrase, and are given small cakes, nuts and fruit.

Which play is traditionally performed in Spain on All Saints' Day?

Don Juan Tenorio. José Zorrilla's 1844 drama ends in a cemetery, where the statue of the wronged Doña Inés comes to life to plead for the seducer's soul, a fitting plot for the season.

What cold dish of meats and vegetables do Guatemalans prepare for All Saints' Day?

Fiambre. The salad is said to have begun with families carrying their dead their favourite dishes: at the cemetery the offerings mingled, and one bowl can now hold dozens of ingredients.

What do people in the Guatemalan towns of Sumpango and Santiago Sacatepéquez fly above the graves on All Saints' Day?

Giant kites. The colourful discs are sent up over the cemeteries in the belief that they help unite the dead with the living.

In Mexico, All Saints' Day falls within which celebration?

Día de Muertos. Families lay a path of flower petals and candles from the cemetery to the house and set out the favourite dishes of the dead, to guide their souls home for a visit.

What is the All Saints' and All Souls' season commonly called in the Philippines?

Undás. The word is thought to come from the Spanish honras, the honours paid to the dead; families spend the day, and often the night, at the graves, cleaning the tombs and sharing food.

Which Filipino custom of singing from house to house as lost souls resembles trick-or-treating?

Pangangaluluwa. On the night before All Saints' Day the singers pretend to be lost souls from purgatory, and each household is expected to give them rice cakes to carry back to the dead.

What do Filipino children make from the melted candles left at tombs?

Wax balls. Children roll the drippings together as they play among the tombs, while relatives who have travelled home share food at the graveside in what doubles as a family reunion.

In Sweden and Finland, the All Saints' Day public holiday always falls on which day of the week?

Saturday. Both countries moved the feast off November 1 to the Saturday that falls between 31 October and 6 November, so the date shifts each year but the weekday never does.

Which German Renaissance artist painted the 'All Saints' Picture', an altarpiece of 1511 now in Vienna?

Albrecht Dürer. A Nuremberg merchant, Matthäus Landauer, ordered it for the chapel of a home he had founded for twelve aged and destitute craftsmen.

The NFL awarded an expansion team to which city on All Saints' Day in 1966?

New Orleans. The team became the Saints, a nod to the feast and to the jazz standard 'When the Saints Go Marching In', and the man behind the bid first cleared the name with the city's archbishop.

Which of these Swiss cantons keeps All Saints' Day as a public holiday?

Ticino. Swiss cantons set their own holidays, so November 1 is a day off in Ticino and Valais but an ordinary working day in Zürich, Geneva and Bern.

In England, the poor once went door to door around All Saints' Day offering prayers for the dead in return for what?

Soul cakes. Each cake paid for a prayer for the giver's dead relatives, and the custom, later taken up by children, is often seen as a forerunner of trick-or-treating.

On All Saints' Day in 1950, the pope defined which dogma about the Virgin Mary?

The Assumption. Before declaring that Mary was taken up body and soul into heaven, Pius XII wrote to every Catholic bishop in 1946 to ask whether he should, and nearly all said yes.

Which book of the Bible gives All Saints' Day its first reading, the scene of 'a great multitude' beyond counting?

Revelation. In the passage the crowd comes 'from every nation, race, people, and tongue' and stands before the throne with palm branches, an image of the uncounted saints the feast honours.

November 1 is a staff holiday at the institutions of which international body?

European Union. Its staff calendar takes in almost every Belgian public holiday, this one included; fittingly, the Union itself came into being on November 1, when the Maastricht Treaty took effect in 1993.

Which country's war of independence from France began with attacks on All Saints' Day in 1954?

Algeria. The night's bombings and sabotage by the FLN are remembered in France as 'Red All Saints' Day', and Algeria now keeps November 1 as its Revolution Day.