All Saints’ Day and the Assumption
Feast of All Saints
A feast in honour of all saints, celebrated on November 1st in the West. The origins of this feast are uncertain. The first mention comes from the East in a hymn composed by Saint Ephrem in 359 where a commemoration of all the martyrs in Edessa on May 13th (Carmen 6) is mentioned. However, in 411, the Syrians in the East observed this commemoration on the Friday after Easter [Breviarium Syriacum 34).
A sermon by Saint John Chrysostom marks the observance of a feast of all martyrs on the first Sunday after Pentecost. When Chrysostom preached this sermon, we do not know if he was referring to the feast in Antioch or Constantinople. If he preached it in Constantinople after becoming Patriarch (398), this would be the first reference to the feast there, still celebrated in the Byzantine Rite on the Sunday after Pentecost.
A observance of all the martyrs on the Sunday after Pentecost also appears in the West. Saint Maximus of Turin (5th century) preached in honor of all the martyrs on the same Sunday (Homily, 81). The commemoration soon also included non-martyrs, as appears in the *Lecionary of Würzburg*—the first list of Roman epistles (a manuscript from the 8th century that testifies to the readings used in the liturgy at the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century)—which indicates this Sunday as *Dominica in natale sanctorum* or *Sunday of the Nativity of the Saints*. It seems to have also existed as an octave to Pentecost. The feast is found again in the *Lecionary of Murbact* which lists readings accompanying the sacramentaries’ family of the 8th century that preceded Charles Magnus’ reform.
Rome also knew of another feast of all the martyrs before adopting November 1st. In 609 or 610, Boniface IV received the Roman Pantheon from Emperor Flavius Phocas Augustus (died 610) and dedicated it under the title of S. Maria ad Martyres (Liber Pontificalis, 1, 317). The dedication took place on May 13th, and the anniversary was subsequently celebrated with great festivity. Many see this as the origin of All Saints’ Day. It may be, however, that the May 13th feast was simply the anniversary of the dedication, or that Boniface chose this date because it was already associated with all the martyrs of the East. The liturgical books testifying to this period do not mention a feast of all the martyrs in continuity with the Syrian feast mentioned by Ephrem.
It has not yet been demonstrated how a feast of all the saints came to be celebrated on November 1st. Pope Gregory III (731-741) dedicated an oratory in St. Peter’s Basilica to “all the apostles, martyrs, confessors, and all the just and perfect who rest throughout the world” (Liber Pontificalis 1,417). The exact date of the dedication in early 732 is not known.
In England, Bede the Venerable mentioned a feast of all the saints in his two martyrologies. Egbert of York was ordained a deacon in Rome in 732 and received the pallium from Pope Gregory. If Egbert is the founder of the feast in the English Church, he may have adopted November 1st as the dedication of Gregory’s oratory. Arno of Salzburg convened a feast of all the saints on November 1st for southeastern Alemannia in 798. In 799, Alcuin, who was educated at York Cathedral under Egbert, praised Arno, Archbishop of Salzburg, for observing the feast of November 1st (Epistle 91).
However, the feast does not appear in Alcuin’s supplement to the Gregorian Sacramentary. According to John Belet (d. 1165), Pope Gregory IV (827-44) transferred the feast from May 13th to November 1st because the provisions (grain harvest) were inadequate for the numerous pilgrims who came to Rome for the May feast (Rationale divinorum officiorum 127). There is no academic consensus on the matter.
Ado of Vienne (800–75), on the other hand, states that the same pontiff asked Saint Louis, the Pious, King of France (778–840), to extend the feast of November 1st throughout the empire (Martyrologium, 123,387). Sigebert (d. 1112) in his chronicle attributes the year 835 to this event. In reality, in the ninth and tenth centuries, November 1st is listed as Natale omnium sanctorum, for example, in the Sacramentary of Corbie.
According to Sicardus of Cremona (d. 1215), it was Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) who definitively suppressed the feast of May 13 in favor of November 1 (Mitrale, 213, 414). Indeed, in the 12th century, May 13 disappears from liturgical books.The feast may also have been a Christian response to the Druid feast of the dead, Samhain. It had a vigil from early times, and an octave was introduced by Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484), who established the feast for the Latin Rite. Both the vigil and the octave were suppressed in 1955.All Saints is classified as a solemnity and is a holy day of obligation (CIC Can. 1246, § “The Sunday, in which the Paschal mystery is celebrated, by apostolic tradition, must be observed as a day of rest in the whole Church. Likewise, the days of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, Epiphany, Ascension, and the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the Feast of the Mother of God and her Immaculate Conception and Assumption, Saint Joseph, and the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and finally, All Saints’ Day, must be observed as holy days.”)The liturgy of the Mass speaks of the sanctity of the people of God through the images of joy, forgiveness, beatitude, and mutual love. The Church not only praises God for all the dead who have reached heavenly glory, but also commits itself to walking towards the heavenly Jerusalem, where all the people of God are in communion (Rev 7:9 “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches in their hands”).The pontifical definition, expression of the Church’s faith.
Seventy-six years ago (1946-2022), Pope Pius XII convened a universal consultation among the shepherds of the Church on the possible definition of Assumption as a dogma of faith. The Encyclical Deiparae Virginis (May 1st, 1946) was addressed to all bishops, asking if they thought the bodily Assumption of Mary could be solemnly defined as a truth to be believed by all, with their clergy and their faithful, and if they desired such a proclamation of the dogma. This was not the first time such a consultation had been held in the Church with the aim of defining a dogma. For the definition of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Pius IX, in 1848, consulted theologians and in 1849 organized a consultation to all bishops. It resulted in near-unanimous adherence, with only five votes, out of over 600, opposed to its definability!
The consultation for the definition of the Assumption yielded an even more significant result due to the smaller proportion of negative responses. This consultation demonstrates the concern of the Popes when they wish to exercise their power to define infallibly a truth of faith, to listen first to the voice of the Church, and to make this voice heard in the announcement of the dogma. This is not an arbitrary or improvised exercise of doctrinal power. In the Apostolic Constitution *Munificentissimus Deus* which defines the Assumption, we read: “The universal consensus of the ordinary Magisterium of the Church provides a certain and solid argument to prove that the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven… is a truth revealed by God and must therefore be firmly and faithfully believed by all the children of the Church.”
When the venerable Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption, he definitively confirmed the faith present in the whole Church. Before the definition, some doubts could still be harbored about the revealed character of this affirmation, and on the eve of the definition, some theologians contested the definability of the doctrine. After the definition, any doubt had to be excluded for those who share the faith of the Catholic Church. Thus appears the usefulness of the pontifical definition: it clarifies the content of the faith by formulating the truth to be believed and gives definitive assurance of adherence to that truth. The doubts expressed by some theologians stemmed from the origin of the Assumption doctrine, which, according to them, would have developed in the first centuries of the Church under the influence of apocryphal accounts of Mary’s death.
These stories attributed a glorious destiny to Mary, but were not based on historical testimony. They emerged as the fruit of human imagination, depicting a solemn scene for the departure of Jesus’ mother from this world. They prompted the liturgical celebration of the dormition or death of Mary, a celebration that drove much doctrinal exposition of the mystery.
We can understand the reactions of distrust regarding the representations of the popular imagination expressed in the apocrypha. However, we must observe that through these representations, a fundamental intuition of Christian faith was expressed: Mary’s entrance into heaven was glorious, because her mother was united to the glory of her Son. The fact that faith expresses itself through sensitive images does not diminish the value of the deep conviction that Mary had a unique and extraordinary participation in the destiny of the Savior.
In the subsequent tradition of the Church, legendary representations were abandoned, and faith in the Assumption of the Mother of Christ could take on a purer form, expressing more explicitly the spiritual nature of glorification after death. The definition of the Assumption, proclaimed on November 1st, 1950, used terms that sought to avoid the idea of moving from one place to another: it does not affirm that Mary was assumed into heaven, but that “she was assumed in body and soul into heavenly glory.” In a spiritual sense, heaven is not a place but a state, characterized by heavenly glory.
We can see that the dogmatic definition corresponds to the conviction expressed in the early centuries by the Christian people. The faith of this people sought representations that expressed Mary’s association with the glorious triumph of her Son. Theological reflection accepted this popular affirmation of faith and gave it a purer and more exact formulation. There was a collaboration of the whole Church in the development of the doctrine of the Assumption, and the proclamation of the dogma by the Venerable Pius XII gave us the fruit of this development, expressing the faith of the people of God.To deepen reflection on the Assumption of Mary and its relation to the feast of All Saints, consult the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus by Paul VI, which situates Marian feasts in the liturgical calendar of the Church in relation to the mystery of Christ.Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian theology, Marian apparitions, and a Postgraduate degree in Mariology.Graduate Studies in Mariology
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