2/10/2024- Alla helgons dag (All saints day) at Largest graveyard,Gothenburg

Описание: All Saints' Day , Festum Omnium Sanctorum or Dominica in natali sanctorum , is a Christian holiday celebrated in honor of martyrs and saints. It has been part of the Swedish church year without interruption since the Middle Ages. In Finland and Sweden, All Saints' Day is a public holiday . It used to always fall on November 1, but was moved in 1772 to the first Sunday in November. With the Swedish holiday reform in 1953, it was moved to the Saturday that falls between October 31 and November 6 . In Finland, it was moved two years later, to Saturday. 

Originally, the day was therefore a fixed holiday on November 1 , a place it has retained in other countries. Within the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, November 1, like All Saints' Day, is one of the obligatory holidays .

After motions in Sweden's Riksdag to increase the number of work-free days in the autumn, All Saints' Day was moved to a Saturday in 1953, which thus became a public holiday ( Saturday was then a working day). At the same time, the name of the almanac was changed on 1 November to All Saints' Day . The Sunday immediately following All Saints' Day took on the character of All Souls' Day in 1983 , in memory of all the dead. Since 2002, this is also one of today's official names in The Swedish Gospel Book .

The custom of commemorating saints and martyrs on different specific days arose early in Christianity, and soon also the need for a gathering day for less significant saints who did not have their own place in the calendar. Therefore, an "all (other) saints' day" was introduced for these. Within the Orthodox churches, the celebration does not take place in autumn but on the first Sunday after Pentecost . For the Orthodox Church, the origin of the day of remembrance was the feast of All Martyrs, which was celebrated for example in Antioch . Even within the Roman Catholic Church this seems to have originally taken place in the spring. After the Pantheon's inauguration as a church on May 13, 608, the celebration was moved to November 1. The date was established under Pope Gregory VII .

A connection to more general commemoration of the dead also arose early. This has its roots in pre-Christian Celtic traditions and was then adopted by the Christianized Germanic peoples . It was believed that at the end of summer and the beginning of winter the dead returned home and needed to be guided with candles and fires, which lives on in the modern custom of lighting candles , adorning and watching over the graves of relatives . Within the Catholic Church, in the 11th century (beginning in Cluny in 998), All Souls' Day was introduced on November 2 , as a day to remember one's deceased relatives. Then the Mass for the dead is celebrated, and is then called Requiem Mass , because one wishes the dead "requiem aeternam" - "eternal rest".

In connection with the Reformation, All Souls' Day ceased to be a holiday in Protestant countries, but in Sweden it was still called Soul's Day in 18th-century almanacs. It was reintroduced in the Church of Sweden as a holiday in 2002 and falls on the Sunday after All Saints' Day; it had then been informally celebrated on this day since the 1950s. In order not to confuse "all saints" and "all the dead", according to the 2002 Gospel Book, "All Saints' Day" is always celebrated on a Saturday in early November.

The following "Sunday after All Saints' Day" is named "All Souls' Day". The collective prayer on All Saints' Day marks the Church's official attitude to the saints, when it asks that the "model" of the "saints' crowd" will "awaken us to a holy life so that we not only celebrate their memory but also follow them in faith and good works". In the Church of Sweden, it is precisely "saints" that are the theme of All Saints' Day:

The custom of lighting candles on graves on All Saints' Day grew in Sweden towards the end of the 19th century. In older tradition, grave candles were mostly lit on Christmas Eve, a custom that survived into the 1940s. 

In the Finnish folk tradition, the harvest festival kekri was formerly celebrated , which coincided with All Saints' Day. Kekri marked the end of the working year and many predictions and customs surrounding the party have later been moved to Christmas and New Year. Halloween has sometimes been seen as a modern version of kekri.