Did You Know? (Sunday, November 1, 2020)

All Saints’ Day had its origins in the fourth century, when churches in the East began to celebrate “the Feast of the Martyrs of the whole world” on the Sunday after Pentecost. In the early Middle Ages, the church of Rome assigned it, the much later date of November 1, and broadened the feast to include all the saints. Western Christendom has followed this custom ever since.

(Stephen Reynolds, For All the Saints, 2007)