In the New Testament, the word “saints” is used to describe the entire membership of the Christian community, and in the Collect for All Saints’ Day the word “elect” is used in a similar sense. From very early times, however, the word “saint” came to be applied primarily to persons of heroic sanctity, whose deeds were recalled with gratitude and admiration by later generations.

Beginning in the tenth century, it became customary to set aside another day on which the church remembered that vast body of the faithful who, though no less members of the company of the redeemed, are unknown in the wider fellowship of the church. It was also a day for particular remembrance of family members and friends. Although those in this wider body of the faithful are no less part of the communion of saints than those persons whose particular sanctity is celebrated on All Saints’ Day, the liturgical mood of the two days is nevertheless quite different, as the joy and exultation of All Saints’ Day transitions to the much more personal remembrances and griefs of All Souls’ Day.

Alhough the observance of All Souls’ Day was abolished at the Reformation because of abuses connected with masses for the dead, a renewed understanding of its meaning has led to a widespread acceptance of this commemoration among Anglicans, and to its inclusion as an optional observance in the calendar of the Episcopal Church.