ALL SAINT. The date of “Day of the Dead” falls this Friday, November 1, 2024. Why is it a public holiday and what is its origin? What is the meaning of the chrysanthemum on All Saints’ Day?
[Mis à jour le 31 octobre 2024 à 17h05] All Saints’ Day is a public holiday dedicated to honoring the saints and martyrs of the faith. Traditionally, this day in France is intended to visit our deceased loved ones and place a bouquet of flowers on their graves. Inevitably, the chrysanthemum is the favored flower of cemeteries on All Saints’ Day and has been since 1919, a year after the First World War, when the current President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré called on the French to flower 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 shifted to November 2, All Souls Day.
Every year, 20 million pots of chrysanthemums are sold and it is one of the rare flowers that blooms at this time of year, symbolizing life after death. For florists, All Saints’ Day is a key date: chrysanthemums represent 15 to 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 CE. The pontiff thus 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 homage to these first believers, exalting their courage and exchanging their relics.
The creation of a common celebration allowed the Catholic hierarchy to group together all these unofficial celebrations. Since November 1st, 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 particularly virtuous acts 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 to put flowers on the graves of our deceased loved ones. November 2 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 appears in the 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 economic efficiency, they will be removed with the advent of the revolutionary calendar, which will come into force on October 6, 1793 (or 15 Vendémiaire of Year II of the Republic). In the villages, people reluctantly accept this new state of affairs and continue to be unemployed on St. John’s Day or All Saints’ Day. In 1802, Napoleon reestablished four public holidays religious, one per season: Christmas in winter, Ascension in spring, Assumption in summer and All Saints’ Day in autumn. Despite its anticlericalism, the Third Republic will not return to this religious heritage. The crisis could, on the other hand, question the existence of certain religious holidays: in 2012, Portugal removed All Saints’ Day from its list of non-working days…
Be aware that the tradition of chrysanthemums is not necessarily what you think. If originally, All Saints’ Day is indeed a religious celebration (read below), the chrysanthemums come from a political will: that of celebrating, from 1919, the soldiers who fell for France during the First world war. That year, after the armistice of November 11 whose centenary 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 decorate the graves of soldiers who died for their country with a chrysanthemum.
During All Saints’ Day, the flower will very quickly leave the strict commemorative framework and spread throughout France and Europe, as the main means of paying tribute to all the deceased. Until now, in fact, 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 (we sometimes speak of the “chrysanthemum throne”). Because the chrysanthemum comes from the Far East (Korea, China, Japan). It would have been created by the hybridization of several wild species. It flowers naturally in autumn and resists frost well: it is therefore perfectly adapted to the autumn climate of the beginning of November.
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 Benedictine communities, notably in Cluny, shortly before the year 1000, before spreading throughout Europe with the consent of the popes. In some countries like Mexico, November 2 is the most important. During the Day of Muertos, entire families gather in cemeteries to make offerings (food, skull statuettes, flowers, etc.) on the altars set up in honor of the deceased. The joyful nature of this celebration contrasts with our very solemn celebrations.
A few days after the winter time change, the pagan holiday of Halloween comes ahead of All Saints’ Day in this series of events that truly usher us into fall. The pumpkin festival born in Celtic countries is celebrated on the evening of October 31, on D-1 of All Saints’ Day. Its very name refers to All Souls Day: the original long version, the Scottish word Allhallow-even, means “the vigil of All Saints’ Day”. 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 “Samain Festival”. Pope Gregory III then introduced All Saints’ Day or All Saints’ Day on November 1, into the calendar of major Christian holidays of the Catholic Church.
All Saints’ Day is celebrated each year in France on November 1st. This year 2024, the date falls this Friday. The date of All Saints’ Day has had a turbulent history. When Boniface IV decided to celebrate All Saints’ Day, it took place on May 13. It was in fact on that day that the Pope consecrated the Pantheon, a Roman temple transformed into the tomb 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 shifted the celebration to November 1. This change in the liturgical calendar could have its origins in the dedication of a chapel in the Church of Saint-Pierre in Rome to all the saints by one of his predecessors.