I am NOT asking if Halloween originated as a Christian holliday - I am aware that it did not. What I want to know is if has been co-opted in any way into the Christian religion, or if it is completely independent. IOW, would the Pope (or your local pastor) make reference to it in some religious observance or sermon, or the like? Is it observed in non-Christian countries? By Christians in non-Western countries? Would a Christian missionary spreading the faith tell the natives about Halloween? Etc. Etc. Or does it coexist with Christianity as a completely independent and unconnected pagan holdover?
Actually, the name is about the only aspect of Hallowe’en that has any connection with Christianity. As Floater says, it’s a contracton of “All Hallows Eve” because it is celebrated on the day before All Saints’ Day. (“Hallow” is an almost obselete English word which means “holy”.)
Would a preacher refer to Hallowe’en in a sermon? Well, yes, he might, but only in the way he might refer to anything which is not inherently religious - the weather, a national holiday, economic or political news, whatever might help to illustrate the religious point he wants to make. But there are no “Hallowe’en services” or the like, and it would not be mentioned in a list of Christian holidays, or any account of Christian worship or ritual.
It’s quite likely, I guess, that the conjunction of the old pagan festival and All Saints day is not coincidental. Christians may well have chosen to celebrate their “day of the dead” at a time at which such a celebration was already established, and attempted to supplant the pagan celebration. They failed, obviously. All they have succeeded in doing is to have the pagan festival renamed.
Nov. 1, All Saints’ Day, is a Holiday of Obligation in the Catholic liturgical calendar. Nov. 2 is All Souls’ Day.
This very interesting link argues that Halloween as-we-know-it is a particularly Anglo-American phenomenon, influenced by Puritanism, and that Samhain was not particularly linked to the the dead, but rather just a convenient holiday. (Besides, why would a religion based at the time mostly in South Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor time its calendar to Hibernian festivals)
(Taken from this thread)