All Saints day and Protestants

[7_Sorrows]

I once belonged to an episcopal church named All Saints.

 

[GKC]

I once belonged to an episcopal church named All Saints.

That’s a fairly common Episcopal Church name.There’s one about 6 blocks from me.

GKC

 

[7_Sorrows]

That’s a fairly common Episcopal Church name.There’s one about 6 blocks from me.

GKC

 

[JonNC]

That’s a fairly common Episcopal Church name.There’s one about 6 blocks from me.

GKC

And then there is the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, NC

allsoulscathedral.org/

Jon

 

[7_Sorrows]

And then there is the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, NC

allsoulscathedral.org/

Jon

How pretty! The kneelers seem particularly nice.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

Our church celebrates All Saints. Doing it on Sunday this year due to the actual day being Saturday. If it is a non Saturday or Sunday we hold a special Mass on the day.

 

[ltwin]

Pentecostals always celebrate Pentecost with devotion and perhaps vigor. I remember in a city were I lived before I moved, there was a Pentecostal church down the street from Saint Mary’s. The decorated the façade of their church to look like a giant birthday cake, with the message “Happy Birthday Church” I liked that a lot.

Where is Itwin when you need him?

I’m around.

There are Pentecostal churches who celebrate it by preaching/teaching on Acts 2 and the Spirit’s empowerment. There is also opportunity for people to pray for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. One year at our church, the pastor used Pentecost Sunday to preach on the unity of the Church.

As for All Saint’s Day, it’s really not something many of us are familiar with because besides Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and maybe Pentecost we don’t have a liturgical calendar. We think in terms of secular Halloween–there are 2 approaches: refuse to acknowledge it as evil or attempt to redeem it.

There have been books written about ways that evangelicals can redeem Halloween. One written by Dr. Eddie Smith, a Baptist pastor, is Halloween, Hallowed is Thy Name. He actually gives credit to the Popes for using Halloween as an evangelistic tool to pagans.

Christians should know that Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints’ Day in an attempt to replace the pagan festival of the dead on May 13, 610, when he dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to St. Mary and other martyred Christians. Later, Gregory III reestablished the festival to honor the saints of St. Peter’s church and changed the date from May 13 to November 1 to coincide with pagan festivals… In 835, Pope Gregory IV … recognized the former celebration of All Saints’ Day, which was used by the pagans to worship dead spirits (demons), had been completely ineffective in replacing the original Celtic New Year holiday… October 31, the evening before, became known as All Hallows Evening and was shortly thereafter abbreviated to … Halloween… * as a masterstroke of evangelism, an act that redeemed or Christianized a pagan holiday, emptying it of its unholy overtones and filling it instead with Christian symbolism and relevance.

(Pg. 30-31)*