Calendar of saints

This article is about the calendar of saints in general. For specific calendars of saints, see Calendar of saints (disambiguation).

A medieval manuscript fragment of Finnish origin, c. 1340–1360, utilized by the Dominican convent at Turku, showing the liturgical calendar for the month of June

The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does not mean "a large meal, typically a celebratory one", but instead "an annual religious celebration, a day dedicated to a particular saint".[1]

The system rose from a Celtic festival of commemorating each martyr annually on the date of their death, their birth into heaven, a date therefore referred to in Latin as the martyr's dies natalis ('day of birth'). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, a calendar of saints is called a Menologion.[2] "Menologion" may also mean a set of icons on which saints are depicted in the order of the dates of their feasts, often made in two panels.

  1. ^ "feast – definition of feast in English from the Oxford dictionary". oxforddictionaries.com. Archived from the original on 27 July 2012.
  2. ^ "Relics and Reliquaries – Treasures of Heaven". columbia.edu. Archived from the original on 20 June 2016. Retrieved 1 August 2012.