# Halloween & Christianity **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 31, 2002, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halloween-christianity/134701 "2002-10-31T14:08:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halloween-christianity/134701/1 "2002-10-31T14:08:27Z")
Is there any connection? 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? ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halloween-christianity/134701/2 "2002-10-31T14:13:41Z")
As Halloween is a contraction of **All Hallows Eve** I’d say it’s as Christian as you can get it. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halloween-christianity/134701/3 "2002-10-31T14:26:13Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halloween-christianity/134701/4 "2002-10-31T15:12:54Z")
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](http://www.heathens.worldonline.co.uk/halloween/history/index.html) 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](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=141547)) jrd