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All Saints' Day and Halloween: what's behind it?

2020-10-31T19:17:49.483Z


All Saints' Day is a public holiday in five federal states. What is actually being done there? And what do All Souls' Day and Halloween have to do with it? The overview.


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Grabengel in Cologne

Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa

As the name suggests, All Saints' Day is a Catholic day of remembrance of saints.

With this festival, the Catholic Church not only commemorates the women and men who were canonized by the Pope after their death, but also those people who lived their faith in a rather unspectacular and quiet way.

According to the Catholic Church, these are also those people "whose holiness no one knows but God."

Since the list of well-known blessed and saints includes thousands of names, this holiday is there to collectively remember everyone.

All Saints' Day is a public holiday in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, as well as in Austria and parts of Switzerland.

Originally, All Saints' Day was celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost as the "Lord's Day of All Saints".

This tradition dates back to the fourth century.

Pope Gregory IV moved the day in the 9th century to November 1st.

Reason: At this point in time, after the harvest time, the tables could be more generously set for the festival.

What do Christians celebrate All Souls Day?

Closely connected with All Saints' Day is the All Souls Day on November 2nd.

Believers then pray for the dead and their souls in purgatory who, according to the church, have not yet reached full communion with God.

Catholics put "soul lights" on the graves to light up the deceased.

The French abbot Odilo von Cluny around 1000 AD, who initially only introduced commemoration in his monasteries, is considered to be the originator of this festival.

Nowadays, the commemoration of the dead is increasingly celebrated on All Saints Day on November 1st.

For the Catholic Church, both days have merged into a "double festival".

Behind this is the church belief that man is united with God after his death.

In the Protestant church, the dead are remembered on "Dead Sunday" at the end of November.

Is Halloween related to All Saints' Day?

On the eve of All Saints 'Day, "Halloween" ("All Hallows' Eve") is now also celebrated by children in Germany.

Groups in scary disguises go from house to house in the evening and ask for sweets at the door.

If that is refused, there is a "treat".

Halloween parties are celebrated in disguise, there is pumpkin soup or cake, hollowed out, illuminated pumpkins stand in front of the doors.

Due to the corona pandemic, Halloween parties and the “trick or treating” known as moving around and collecting sweets have to be canceled.

Since when this custom has existed and where it comes from is unclear.

Evidence of this can be traced back to the 16th century in Ireland and Scotland.

All Saints' Eve was celebrated there with a feast, and children collected donations at the front doors.

Irish immigrants brought the festival to North America in the 19th century, where it gained great popularity and was heavily commercialized.

From there the custom spilled back to Europe.

Since the nineties, Halloween parties or ghost parades on October 31st have increasingly spread in Germany.

According to other theories, the custom goes back to a Celtic festival called Samhain: At the beginning of the new Celtic calendar year on November 1st, it was believed that the world of the living and the world of the dead were closest.

The evil spirits were to be driven away with fire and masking, or they were appeased with gifts at the front door.

The connection to the Celts is not historically proven.

There are also insufficient historical sources for the Celtic Festival.

Icon: The mirror

aci / dpa

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2020-10-31

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