Origin & Meaning of All Saints Feast by Fr. Richard Andrews
Has anyone heard of the word ‘synaxarion’? Amazingly it appears in the online dictionary at reference.com. The listing says that ‘synaxarion’ is “a summary of the life of a saint or of the particulars of a feast, read at Matins. Or a book containing such summaries.” It comes from the word ‘synaxis’ which is an assembly for religious worship, especially for the celebration of the Eucharist. ‘Synaxis’ comes from the Greek/Hebrew word ‘synagogue’ which means “to gather together.” Thus, the synaxarion is read at the synax-is. In other words, the lives of the saints were read and heard when the faith-ful gathered for worship. Unfortunately, in modern practice the synaxarion has been abbreviated down to just the name, location and manner of death for each saint commemorated on the particular day. Most of what we do know about any particular saint comes from the synaxarion. These stories have been reproduced in various books for sale and are now widely available on the internet. Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints and the full synax-arion is a beautifully written exposition that explains the history and meaning of the Feast. I would like to share it with you.
On this day, the Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate the feast of all the Saints from throughout the inhabited world, in Asia, Libya and Europe, in North and South. Verses: I sing the praise of each friend of my Lord, If any would, let them now list them all.
Our most godlike Fathers decreed that we should celebrate the present feast after the descent of the All-holy Spirit, as showing in a certain way that the coming of the All-holy Spirit acted through the Apostles like this: sanctifying and making wise human beings taken from our mortal clay and, for the com-pletion of that fallen angelic order, restoring them and through Christ send-ing them to God, some by the witness of martyrdom and blood, others by their virtuous conduct and way of life; and things beyond nature are achieved. For the Spirit descends in the form of fire, whose natural momen-tum is upwards; while dust, whose natural momentum is downwards, as-cends on high, that dust which forms our mortal clay, the flesh added to and made divine by God the Word, which a short time before, had been exalted and taken its seat at the right hand of the Father’s glory. But he now also draws all those who wish, according to the promise, just as God the Word had manifested the works of reconciliation and what was the end, most suita-ble to its purpose, of His coming to us through flesh and of his dispensation, namely that He brings those who were rejected before to union and friend-ship with God — human nature offering to God the ungrateful people from the nations like first fruits —those who were outstandingly well-pleasing to Him. This is one reason that we celebrate the feast of All Saints.
A second reason is because, though many people have been well-pleasing to God, they were through outstanding virtue unknown to humanity by name, or for some human reason or other, but nevertheless have great glory in God’s sight. Or again, because there are many who have lived following Christ in India, Egypt, Arabia. Mesopotamia and Phrygia and in the lands beyond the Black Sea, even as far as the British Isles themselves; in short, in both East
and West, but it was not easy to honor them all properly because of their vast numbers, in the way that ecclesiastical custom has been re-ceived. And therefore, so that we may attract the help of them all, wherever on earth they were well-pleasing to God, and generally for those who would later become Saints, the most-godly Fathers ordained that we should celebrate the feast of All Saints, honoring the earlier and later ones, the unknown and the known — all those in whom the Holy Spirit has dwelt he has made holy. A third reason is this. It was neces-sary for the Saints who are celebrated individually day by day to be gathered together on one day, in order to demonstrate that, as they struggled for the one Christ and all ran the race in the same stadium of virtue, so they were all fittingly crowned as servants of one God and sustained the Church, having filled the world on high. They stir us also to accomplish the same struggle in its different and many forms, to the degree of power that each of us has to press onwards with all eager-ness. For all these Saints from every age the revered and wise Emperor Leo erected and vast and very beautiful church. This is very near the church of the holy Apostles, within the city of Constantine. He built it originally, it is said, for his first wife Theophano, who was outstanding-ly well-pleasing to God, which was indeed a marvel in the midst of tur-moil and in royal palaces. When he informed the Church of his idea, he did not succeed in making it agree with his wishes The most wise Em-peror, with the approval of the whole Church, dedicated to all the Saints everywhere in the world the building that had been erected, ob-serving that ‘Since Theophano is a Saint, let her be numbered with the rest. ‘ Note that we are celebrating everything that the Holy Spirit, in giving good things, has made holy. I mean the highest and sanctifying Minds, that is to say the Nine Orders; the Ancestors and Patriarchs; the Prophets and sacred Apostles; the Martyrs and Hierarchs; the Priest Martyrs and Ascetic Martyrs; the Ascetics and the Just and all the choirs of holy women and all the other anonymous Saints, with them let there be all who will come afterwards. But before all, in all and with all, the Saint of Saints, the most holy and quite incomparably mightier than the angelic Orders, our Lady and Sovereign, Mary, Ever-Virgin. In conclusion, now that we know the origin, history and meaning of the All Saints Feast, we must ask why we celebrate this feast and other feasts of individual saints? First, we must remember that everyone is created for and called to saintliness and holiness. To be holy as God is holy (Leviticus 20:26; 1Peter 1:16). It is not for just a select few. The early Church called all Christians ‘saints’. Second, the saints are mod-els of holiness in life and conduct. We can be inspired by their example to strive for the same holiness in our own life. That is why we petition God repeatedly, “Remembering our most-holy, pure, blessed, glorious Lady, Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us com-mit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God