All Saints' Day 2024: What is celebrated on this holiday ?

“All Saints' Day 2024: what do we celebrate this holiday?”

ALL SAINTS' DAY. The date of the “Day of the Dead” falls this Friday, November 1, 2024. Why is it a holiday and what is its origin ? What is the meaning of the chrysanthemum on All Saints' Day ?

[Updated October 31, 2024 at 5:05 p.m.]  All Saints' Day is a holiday dedicated to honoring the saints and martyrs of the faith. Traditionally, this day in France is dedicated to visiting our deceased loved ones and placing a bouquet of flowers on their graves. Inevitably, the chrysanthemum is the preferred flower in cemeteries on All Saints' Day and has been since 1919, a year after the First World War, when the then President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré called on the French to lay flowers on the graves of soldiers who died at the front in all the communes of France, during the celebration of the first anniversary of the armistice of 1918, on November 11. Gradually, the date was shifted to November 2, the day of the feast of the dead.

Every year, 20 million pots of chrysanthemums are sold and it is one of the few flowers that blooms at this time of year, symbolizing life after death. For florists, All Saints' Day is a key date: the chrysanthemum represents 15 20% of their annual turnover.

Originally, All Saints' Day was a creation of the Catholic Church, which is never mentioned in the Bible. All Saints' Day, the feast of all saints, was created by Pope Boniface IV in 610 AD. The pontiff wanted to honor the memory of the martyrs among the first Christians. Indeed, converts to this monotheistic religion were massacred by the Romans at the beginning of our era. From the 4th century onwards, Christians had paid posthumous tributes to these first believers, extolling their courage and exchanging their relics.

The creation of a common feast allowed the Catholic hierarchy to group together all these unofficial celebrations. Since then, on November 1, Catholics have celebrated All Saints' Day. On this day, believers celebrate all the martyrs and saints of Christianity, known and unknown. Saints are remarkable people, given as examples for their actions. To become a saint, one must have performed miracles or acts that are particularly virtuous in the eyes of the Church, which can initiate a canonization procedure. As recalled at the beginning of this article, it is therefore not, in theory, on November 1st that we should go and put flowers on the graves of our deceased loved ones. November 2nd is in fact, in the liturgical calendar, the official day of homage to all deceased Christians.

All Saints' Day is one of the 11 public holidays recognized in France and is listed in Article L3133-11 of the Labor Code. Before the French Revolution, there were nearly 50 religious holidays in France, including All Saints' Day. In order to reduce the influence of Catholicism and for the sake of efficiency, &economically, they will be eliminated with the advent of the revolutionary calendar, which will come into force on October 6, 1793 (or 15 Vendée of Year II of the Republic). In the villages, people reluctantly accept this new state of affairs and continue to be unemployed on Saint John's Day or All Saints' Day. In 1802, Napoleon reestablished four religious holidays, one for each season: Christmas in winter, Ascension in spring, Assumption in summer and All Saints' Day in autumn. Despite its anticlericalism, the Third Republic did not reverse this religious heritage. The crisis could, however, call into question the existence of certain religious holidays: in 2012, Portugal abolished All Saints' Day from his list of days off…

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Be aware that the tradition of chrysanthemums is not necessarily what you think. If originally, All Saints' Day is indeed a religious holiday (read below), chrysanthemums come from a political desire: to celebrate, at from 1919, the soldiers who fell for France during the First World War. This year, after the armistice of November 11, the centenary of which will be celebrated in a few days, France is trying as best it can to recover from the horror of the trenches. It was in this post-war context that Raymond Poincaré, then President of the Republic, asked the French to go and place flowers on the graves of soldiers who had died for their country, with a chrysanthemum.

During All Saints' Day, the flower will very quickly go beyond the strict commemorative framework and spread throughout France and Europe as the main way to pay tribute to all the deceased. Until now, candles were placed on graves during All Saints' Day. But the chrysanthemum does not always have the same meaning abroad: in Japan, it is the symbol of the Emperor (sometimes referred to as the “chrysanthemum throne”). Because the chrysanthemum is native to the Far East (Korea, China, Japan). It is said to have been created by the hybridization of several wild species. It flowers naturally in autumn and is frost-resistant: it is therefore perfectly adapted to the autumn climate of early November.

All Saints' Day is an opportunity to visit Parisian cemeteries, some of which are particularly conducive to the promenade, like the famous Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. © emilio – stock.adobe.com

The Feast of the Dead or Day of the Dead takes place this Wednesday, November 2: prayers are read for all the deceased, in order to ensure the salvation of their souls. The tradition appeared in the Benedictine communities, notably in Cluny, shortly before the year 1000, before spreading throughout Europe with the assent of the popes. In some countries such as Mexico, November 2 is the most important day. During the Día de Muertos, entire families gather in cemeteries to make offerings (food, skull statuettes, flowers…) on altars erected in honor of the deceased. The joyful nature of this holiday contrasts with our very solemn celebrations.

A few days after the change to winter time, the holiday is Halloween comes before All Saints' Day in this series of events that really bring us into fall . The pumpkin festival, which originated in Celtic countries, is celebrated on the evening of October 31, & ;agrave; D-1 of All Saints' Day. Its very name refers to All Souls' Day: the original long version, the Scottish wordAllhallow-even, means “All Saints' Eve”. From the 8th century, the Catholic Church initiated a rapprochement with the future Halloween, then a pagan festival celebrated by the Celts at the beginning of autumn under the name of “Feast of Samain”. Pope Gregory III introduced at this time All Saints' Day or the feast of all saints at the date of November 1st, in the calendar of major Christian holidays of the Catholic Church.

All Saints' Day is celebrated every year in France on November 1st. This year, 2024, the date falls on this Friday. The date of All Saints' Day has had an eventful history. When Boniface IV decided to celebrate All Saints' Day, it took place on May 13th. It was on this day that the Pope consecrated the Pantheon, a Roman temple transformed into the burial place of Christian martyrs. The Pantheon celebrated all the gods, All Saints' Day will celebrate all the saints. It was around 835 that Pope Gregory IV moved the feast to November 1. This change in the liturgical calendar could have its origins in the dedication of a chapel in the Church of Saint Peter in Rome to the group of saints by one of his predecessors.