ALL SOULS SATURDAY: THE WESTERN ORTHODOX FEAST OF LOVE, REMEMBRANCE, AND RESURRECTION

May the Souls of the Faithfully Departed Rest in Peace

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

INTRODUCTION

In the calendar of the Western Orthodox Church, the Saturday before Pentecost is marked by a tender and profound observance known as All Souls Saturday - a holy day of prayer for the faithful departed. While the feast finds parallels throughout the Christian world - East and West alike - it holds a particular sweetness in our tradition, binding together the mystery of death, the joy of resurrection, and the unbroken communion of the Body of Christ across the veil of time.

This sacred day is not merely about remembering the dead. It is a liturgical embrace, a spiritual birthday, a celebration of the soul’s new birth into the hope of everlasting life.

THEOLOGY OF REMEMBRANCE

In the Orthodox mind, memory is not nostalgia. It is not mere recollection. To remember is to re-member - to bind again that which has been torn or separated. As St. Paul writes, “whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8), and as our Lord Himself assures us, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38).

Thus, when we commemorate our departed loved ones on All Souls Saturday, we are not speaking into the void. We are proclaiming the truth of the Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Our dead in Christ are not lost; they are remembered, cherished, awaited. The ancient hymn that we sing at the close of the Panakhida service sums it with timeless poignancy:

“Memory eternal!

Memory eternal!

Memory eternal!”

This is not a wish that we, the living, will never forget - but that God Himself will hold them always in His loving remembrance. In the Scriptures, to be remembered by God is to be preserved, vindicated, and raised.

CAKE, CANDLE, AND SONG: THE RITUAL OF LOVE

The outward rituals of All Souls Saturday are deeply meaningful. Families prepare kollyva or cakes of remembrance - made from sweet grains, nuts, honey, or raisins - offered in church with the names of their departed written and read aloud during the Divine Liturgy or the Panakhida (Memorial Service). After the blessing, the cake is shared among all, like a sacred birthday cake - not for the day the person was born into the world, but for the day they were born into the Kingdom of Heaven.

This practice is profoundly familial and communal. We do not mourn our dead in isolation, but in the company of the Church - those on earth and those in heaven. We light a candle, we bake a cake, we sing a hymn. Just as we would for any living soul we love, so we do for those who have gone before us. Death does not end our bonds of affection. It merely transforms them.

As the Panakhida says:

“With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the soul of Thy servant,

where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing,

but life everlasting.”

EAST MEETS EAST: A CROSS-CULTURAL RECOGNITION

Interestingly, this Western Orthodox practice finds a beautiful harmony with ancestral commemoration customs in Chinese tradition. In many Chinese households, four annual festivals - such as Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping Day), the Double Ninth Festival, the Death Anniversary/Birthday of the various ancestors, and Chinese New Year - are marked by preparing food in memory of loved ones, gathering together to clean graves, offer incense, and share a meal. These rites are not “offerings to the dead” in a superstitious sense, but an expression of filial piety - the same deep love that compels Christians to remember their departed.

Western Orthodoxy affirms this intuition: the sacred act of eating together in memory, the lighting of a candle, the naming of a soul aloud before God - these are profoundly human ways of expressing a divine truth. That no one is ever truly gone who is loved in Christ. That to remember is to rejoin.

THE BRIDGE TO PENTECOST

All Souls Saturday also falls strategically just before Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh. It is a moment of threshold - a hinge between earth and heaven, between the old age and the new creation. As we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Church, we first remember those who have gone before us into the Kingdom.

Their journey is not over; nor is ours. In Christ, we are all pressing forward together - some visible, some unseen - toward that great Day when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying” (Revelation 21:4).

MEMORY AS HOPE

So when we sing “Memory Eternal,” we are not only praying that we will never forget those we love. We are proclaiming that God has not forgotten, and never will. That their names are written in the Book of Life. That we shall see them again, and they shall rise in glory.

And until then, we light a candle. We bake a cake. We sing a song.

Because love is stronger than death.

“Give rest, O Lord, to the soul of Thy servant,

and make his memory to be eternal!”

COLLECT

O Lord Jesu Christ, who art the Resurrection and the Life: We beseech thee mercifully to behold thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; and grant that, having been washed in the laver of regeneration, nourished with thy Body and Blood, and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, they may rest in peace and rise in glory at the last day. And give us grace so to live in steadfast remembrance of thy Cross and Passion, that, being ever mindful of those who have gone before, we may with them be made partakers of thy heavenly kingdom; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

#AncientChurchoftheWest #OrthodoxArchdiocese #Anglo-Celtic #AngloOrthodox #MemoryEternal #AllSoulsSaturday #Panakhida #WesternOrthodox #FilialPiety #RemembranceAndResurrection