Chapter I
What it celebrates
From the 4th century, churches in the East kept a common feast for all the martyrs, and the Orthodox still keep the Sunday of All Saints a week after Pentecost. In Rome, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon to the Virgin Mary and all martyrs on 13 May 609 or 610. Gregory III (731–741) consecrated a chapel in St Peter’s to all the saints, and in the 9th century, under Gregory IV, the feast on 1 November spread through the Frankish lands and the whole Western Church.
The feast expresses the belief in the “communion of saints”: the living and the dead form one Church, and the saints, known and unknown, pray for those still on earth.
Chapter II
How it is kept
Catholics attend Mass, and in many countries the day is a public holiday. In the afternoon families go to the cemetery, often travelling long distances to their home towns, to tend the graves of relatives, lay flowers and light candles. Priests bless the graves, and prayers for the dead continue on All Souls’ Day.
Chapter III
Around the world
In France, Belgium and Italy chrysanthemums fill the cemeteries. In Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia millions of candles in red and coloured glass lanterns, znicze, make cemeteries glow through the night. In the Philippines families spend the night of Undas beside their dead, with food and music, and in Mexico the days merge with the Día de Muertos, with altars of marigolds, photographs and offerings.