In Orthodoxy Saints are glorified and not canonized. The difference is wide. In Orthodoxy the recognition of Saints comes from the ground up when people start having devotion to a local, eventually the devotion spreads widely and expand to national churches. But not all churches celebrate exactly the same Saints. There are Russian Saints, Greek Saints and Arab saints.
In Rome the process is different. Saints are canonized from the top down, with a complex process that involves Devils advocates, a number of miracles required and a lot of research into the life of the potential Saint.
With Anglican/Episcopal who knows. They just add people to the calendar without canonization or glorification. There are two catagories of Saints in Anglicanism, the red letter Saints and the black letter saints. Red letter Saints are mostly people mentioned in the bible, while black letter saints can literally include anyone like Florence Nightingale and Martin Luther King.
Canonisation in the history of the Church has not been limited to one particular method, notably the juridical model currently utilised by Rome. As you’ve pointed out, Orthodoxy has a different system.
In the late 1950’s an Anglican report ‘Saints and Heroes’ acknowledged that Anglican values as reflected in its practices about the Saints were closer to the autocephalous churches of Orthodoxy than to Rome.
The report said that “the cult of a true saint should be spontaneous, springing from the devotion of the people among whom he/she lived and worked; second, that a bishop or a synod — provincial, national or general — is the proper authority to control the cult.”
King Charles the Martyr was canonised by Convocation of the Church of England according to the three fold pre-10th custom. He died for the Church of England because he refused to abandon episcopacy. Several churches in England are dedicated to Charles and there have been a few alleged miracles ascribed to him. There is still a small but active cultus.
The 1958 Lambeth Conference issued the following guidlines regarding the commemoration of Saints and heroes of the Christian Church in the Anglican Communion:
"The Conference is of the opinion that the following principles should guide the selection of saints and heroes for commemoration:
(a) In the case of scriptural saints, care should be taken to commemorate men or women in terms which are in strict accord with the facts made known in Holy Scripture.
(b) In the case of other names, the Kalendar should be limited to those whose historical character and devotion are beyond doubt.
(c) In the choice of new names economy should be observed and controversial names should not be inserted until they can be seen in the perspective of history.
(d) The addition of a new name should normally result from a wide-spread desire expressed in the region concerned over a reasonable period of time."
The current CofE Calendar contains several post Reformation Roman Canonised Saints as well as figures such as Florence Nightingale. To take Nightingale as an example, she is honoured for her humanitarian work with the poor and her nursing role in the Crimea. She is seen as a renewer of society and worked tirelessly towards this by lobbying Parliament. A formidable task for a mere woman of her time.
(It should be noted that the addition of Reformation or post Reformation era ‘Roman’ Saints such as Fisher, More etc are controversial amongst Evangelical/Low Church Anglicans).
I live in a Celtic region of Britain where many of our churches are dedicated to 5/6th century Celtic Saints. Probably the majority of these have not been canonized in the Roman sense but there is no doubt that we consider them Saints with a capital S and honour them as such.
