What Is All Saints' Day, and How Is It Different From Halloween?

All Saints' Day is a Christian feast, kept on November 1 in the Western church, that honors all the saints of God, the famous ones with names on church doors and the countless faithful believers known only to God. Halloween is simply the evening before it: the name is a Scottish contraction of "All Hallows' Eve," and "hallow" is an old English word for a saint. So the two are not rivals. Halloween is the eve, All Saints' Day is the feast, and All Souls' Day on November 2 completes a three-day season of remembering the dead in Christ.

At a Glance

• All Saints' Day falls on November 1 in the Catholic Church and in many Protestant churches. The Eastern Orthodox Church keeps All Saints Sunday on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
• "Halloween" comes from "All Hallows' Even," the eve of All Hallows' Day, another name for All Saints' Day. The word is first recorded in Scotland in the 1500s.
• Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel in St. Peter's Basilica to all the saints in the 730s, and Pope Gregory IV extended the November 1 celebration to the whole Western church in the 800s.
• All Souls' Day on November 2 remembers all the faithful departed, not only the saints. October 31 through November 2 together are known as Allhallowtide.
• In 2026, All Saints' Day falls on a Sunday.

What Is All Saints' Day?

All Saints' Day is a day to thank God for everyone who has finished the race of faith. In the New Testament, "saints" is a word for all of God's people, and the feast has always carried that wide meaning. It remembers the apostles and martyrs of church history, and also the grandmother who prayed for decades and the believer whose name no history book records.

The Bible gives the day its most beloved image. After listing the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, the writer turns to the reader: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1). The book of Revelation adds a vision of "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues" standing before the throne of God (Revelation 7:9). All Saints' Day celebrates that multitude, and it reminds the living that they belong to the same family.

Where Did All Saints' Day Come From?

The feast grew slowly out of the early church's love for its martyrs. By the late fourth century, Christians in the East were already keeping a common day for all the martyrs; a sermon of St. John Chrysostom marks such a feast on the first Sunday after Pentecost.

In Rome, the story unfolds over several centuries. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the ancient Pantheon on May 13 in 609 or 610 to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs, ordering a yearly anniversary. Pope Gregory III, who reigned from 731 to 741, consecrated a chapel in St. Peter's Basilica to all the saints and fixed its anniversary on November 1. Pope Gregory IV, who reigned from 827 to 844, extended the November 1 celebration to the entire church, and in 835 the emperor Louis the Pious made it a holy day of obligation throughout the Frankish Empire. It has been part of the Western Christian year ever since, alongside the feasts traced in our history of Christian holidays in America.

What Does Halloween Actually Mean?

The word Halloween is itself a Christian word. In older English, All Saints' Day was called All Hallows' Day, and the evening before it was All Hallows' Even. Scottish speakers shortened "even" to "e'en," and over time "All Hallows' E'en" became "Halloween." The word "hallow" comes from the Old English term for a holy person or saint, the same root found in the Lord's Prayer: "hallowed be thy name." So Halloween means, quite literally, "the eve of the saints."

Many of the customs attached to the night have a more tangled history. Scholars genuinely disagree here. Some argue that Halloween traditions were shaped by Celtic harvest festivals such as the Gaelic Samhain, while others hold that Halloween developed on its own as the Christian vigil of All Hallows' Day. What is well documented is the medieval practice of "souling," in which people went door to door collecting soul cakes in return for praying for the dead of the household, a custom often named as one ancestor of trick-or-treating. Irish and Scottish immigrants brought many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century, and trick-or-treating became widespread in the United States in the 20th century.

How Is All Saints' Day Different From Halloween?

They are two parts of the same season with very different characters.

• Halloween (October 31) is the eve. In modern America it is mostly a cultural celebration of costumes, candy, and neighborhood fun, and for many Protestant churches it is also Reformation Day.
• All Saints' Day (November 1) is the feast. It is a church holy day of worship, thanksgiving, and remembrance, focused on the triumph of God's grace in the lives of His people.
• All Souls' Day (November 2) is a day of prayer and remembrance for all the faithful departed, which our guide to All Souls' Day explores in more detail.

Christians hold a range of views about how to approach Halloween itself. Some families enjoy it freely as a neighborly tradition, some host harvest festivals or "trunk-or-treat" nights at church, and some choose to sit it out. Whatever a household decides, it can be a gift to remember what the night was originally pointing toward: the morning of All Saints, when the church gives thanks for the faithful who have gone before.

How Do Different Christian Traditions Observe All Saints' Day?

Catholics keep All Saints' Day as a solemnity and, in the United States, a holy day of obligation. Under the U.S. bishops' norms, the obligation to attend Mass is lifted when November 1 falls on a Saturday or a Monday, though the feast itself is still celebrated. All Souls' Day follows on November 2, when many families visit cemeteries and pray for their loved ones.

Eastern Orthodox Christians keep a different date. The Orthodox Church celebrates the Sunday of All Saints on the first Sunday after Pentecost, which falls in late spring or early summer. The timing ties the saints to the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is poured out at Pentecost and makes holy lives possible. The Orthodox remember the departed on several Soul Saturdays through the year rather than on a single November date.

Protestants observe the day in varied ways. In the Church of England, All Saints' Day is a Principal Feast that may be kept on November 1 or on the Sunday between October 30 and November 5. Many Lutheran, Methodist, and other mainline congregations mark All Saints Sunday on the first Sunday in November, often reading aloud the names of church members who died in the past year, lighting candles, or ringing a bell for each name. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called All Saints' Day "a festival I truly love." The day is also linked to the Reformation: Martin Luther is traditionally said to have posted his Ninety-five Theses on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints, at the Castle Church in Wittenberg, which held a large collection of relics displayed on All Saints' Day.

Why Does All Saints' Day Still Matter?

All Saints' Day speaks to something every family eventually faces: grief. It gives the church a set time to say the names of those it has lost and to give thanks for how God worked through them. It answers the fear of death with the hope of the resurrection.

For Christians in America, it is also a reminder that faith is inherited. Every believer came to Christ through someone else's witness, a parent, a pastor, a friend, or a stranger. This year, when Halloween ends and November 1 arrives, consider pausing to name the saints in your own story, thank God for them, and ask for the grace to run your part of the race as faithfully as they ran theirs.