November 2 in Church History

All Souls is the day the Western church prays for the faithful departed. It was established by Odilo, abbot of Cluny, who extended the commemoration of dead monks to all the dead and set it on the day after All Saints. Cluny’s influence carried the custom across the West. Medieval bequests, chantries and All Souls College at Oxford show its importance, especially in medieval Europe. Protestant Reformers later attacked the idea of purgatory behind it, which is central to the very concept of the day from the Catholic perspective. In Western Christian tradition it is still a day marked for visiting cemeteries and praying for the dead.

A critical event changed the Middle East on this date in 1917. Britain declared that it favored “a national home for the Jewish people.” The declaration also promised to protect the rights of existing non-Jewish communities. The impact of this date on the modern world, and Christianity’s relationship to Islam and Judaism, can hardly be overstated.