One of the things that I like most about Saint Mary’s is that all major feasts are celebrated when they actually occur. There is a venerable tradition of moving some feasts to Sunday so that everyone can be present for the feast, and in many churches this seems appropriate sometimes. Saint Mary’s is a special place, where it’s possible to celebrate every feast on the date that it falls, and I am thankful for that. Our celebration of any major feast begins, whenever possible, the night before. This is commonly referred to as the Eve of the particular feast. This year, All Saints’ Day, November 1st , falls on a Saturday, and it will be observed at our noonday services that day, but our primary celebration will be Friday night, October 31st, the Eve of All Saints’ Day.
There is some disagreement over the origin of the feast of All Saints. It has been celebrated on a number of different dates. In the eastern churches a festival for all the martyrs (eventually all the saints) has been celebrated since the time of St. John Chrysostom (d. 407 AD) on the Sunday after Pentecost. In the western church it has also been celebrated on November 1 and May 13. Many argue that the date of November 1 was chosen since it was the date of the Celtic New Year and other important Roman pagan celebrations, and the Christian observance of All Saints’ on that day began in Ireland or England and was eventually adopted by the rest of the western Church. While there are a number of instances where the dating of Christian feasts matches important local non-Christian celebrations, there is often stronger evidence that many Christian feasts date from events that happened in important churches. It is with this in mind that others would argue that the dates of November 1 and May 13 correspond to important events in churches in Rome.
At the start of the seventh century, the, at the time abandoned, Pantheon in Rome was given by the emperor to the bishop of Rome. On May 13, 609 (or 610?), the Pantheon was dedicated as the Church of St. Mary and All Martyrs. The event was quite memorable, as Adolph Adams writes in The Liturgical Year: “On the day of consecration the pope had 28 wagonloads of martyrs’ bones brought to the church from the catacombs. The antiphons of the old rite for the dedication of a church may refer to that triumphant act of translation; one of them, for example reads: ‘rise up, saints of God, from your dwellings; sanctify this place and bless the people!’” It sounds like an unforgettable event, and events like this are often the source of major annual celebrations, in this case for all martyrs, that eventually spread beyond the source church. A similar event (likely without quite as many bones or wagons) occurred about one hundred years later, between 731-741, when a chapel for All Saints’ was built in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It is believed that the chapel was may have been dedicated on November 1, and from this dedication an annual feast spread north, reaching England by the end of the century, where it is attested by the middle of the eighth century. By the middle of the ninth century November 1 was confirmed as the official celebration for All Saints’ by the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious.
Why is there disagreement about who started the feast and attached it to November 1? I am not sure. I think the simple answer is to say that Christians just used an existing date, but I’m not sure the simple answer is always the correct answer. There is no indication at all in Adams’ book that would lead one to think the feast developed anywhere other than at Rome, and significantly, Adams is a Roman Catholic, writing for Roman Catholics. On the other hand, the most popular sources on the web for “facts and history” (the History Channel and Wikipedia), do not mention at all the history of the different dates or reasons for them and assume that the date was mandated for the entire western church by the bishop of Rome simply to replace a popular pagan feast in the north-western-most part of the church. The Oxford Commentary on the 1928 American Prayer Book is careful to note both possibilities, but makes the case for only one: the date of November 1 probably was the date that the chapel was dedicated in Rome and it was a convenient coincidence that there also was pagan feast in England on the same date.
In any event, the church today celebrates All Saints’ Day on November 1. The Right Reverend Mark S. Sisk, Bishop of New York, will be with us as celebrant and preacher this year for Solemn Pontifical Mass on the Eve of All Saints’ Day, October 31 at 6:00 PM. This year All Saints’ Day and Halloween should be very special, and I hope you will be able to join us.
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