All Saints & All Souls Days

Catholic—All Saints and All Souls (Nov. 1, 2)

Source: Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1958), pp. 307–309, 312, 313. Copyright 1952 by Francis X. Weiser. Used by permission of the publishers.

[p. 307] The Church of Antioch kept a commemoration of all holy martyrs on the first Sunday after Pentecost… In the course of the succeeding centuries the feast spread through the whole Eastern Church…

[p. 308] Meanwhile, the practice had spread of including in this memorial not only all martyrs, but the other saints as well…

Finally, Pope Sixtus IV (1484) established it [All Saints, November 1] as a holyday of obligation for the entire Latin Church, giving it a liturgical vigil and octave. The octave was discontinued in 1955…

The need and duty of prayer for the departed souls has been acknowledged by the [Catholic] Church at all times. It … found expression not only in public and private prayers, [p. 309] but especially in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice for the repose of souls… Finally, in the fourteenth century, Rome placed the day of the commemoration of all the faithful departed [All Souls] in the official books of the Western Church for November 2 (or November 3 if the second falls on a Sunday).

November 2 was chosen in order that the memory of all the "holy spirits" both of the saints in Heaven and of the souls in purgatory should be celebrated on two successive days, and in this way to express the Christian belief in the "Communion of Saints." …

[p. 312] Pre-Christian Elements. Our pagan forefathers kept several "cult of the dead" rites as various times of the year. One of these periods was the great celebration at the end of the fall and the beginning of winter (around November 1). Together with the practices of nature and demon lore (fires, masquerades, fertility cults) they also observed the ritual of the dead with many traditional rites. Since All Saints and All Souls happened to be [p. 313] placed within the period of such an ancient festival, some of the pre-Christian traditions became part of our Christian feast and associated with Christian ideas.

There is, for instance, the pre-Christian practice of putting food at the graves or in the homes at such times of the year when the spirits of the dead were believed to roam their familiar earthly places. The beginning of November was one of these times. By offering a meal or some token food to the spirits, people hoped to please them and to avert any possible harm they could do. Hence came the custom of baking special breads in honor of the holy souls and bestowing them on the children and the poor. This custom is widespread in Europe. "All Souls’ bread" (Seelenbrot) is made and distributed in Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Spain, Italy, Hungary, and in the Slavic countries.

In some sections of central Europe boys receive on All Souls’ Day a cake shaped in the form of a hare, and girls are given one in the shape of a hen (an interesting combination of "spirit bread" and fertility symbols). These figure cakes are baked of the same dough as the festive cakes that the people eat on All Saints’ Day and which are a favorite dish all over central Europe. They are made of braided strands of sweet dough and called "All Saints’ cakes" (Heiligenstriezel in German, Strucel Swiateczne in Polish, Mindszenti KalaŒcska in Hungarian).