Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church)

The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important and influential people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in high church or Anglo-Catholic traditions may explicitly invoke saints as intercessors in prayer, though saints are mainly recognized in the Episcopal Church as merely examples in history of good Christian people.

This is the calendar of saints found in the Book of Common Prayer, Lesser Feasts and Fasts and additions made at recent General Conventions; the relevant official resources of the Episcopal Church.

About Feasts, Fasts, the Anglican Communion and the Liturgical Calendar

The Episcopal Church publishes Lesser Feasts and Fasts, which contains feast days for the various men and women the Church wishes to honor. This book is updated every three years, when notable people can be added to the liturgical calendar by the General Convention. This list reflects changes made at the 2009 and 2015 General Conventions. It includes provisional changes made in the new official lists of feasts, Holy Women, Holy Men[1] and A Great Cloud of Witnesses.[2]

There is no single calendar for the various churches making up the Anglican Communion; each makes its own calendar suitable for its local situation. As a result, the calendar here contains a number of figures important in the history of the church in the United States. Calendars in different provinces will focus on figures more important to those different countries. Different provinces often borrow important figures from each other's calendars as the international importance of different figures become more prominent. In this way the calendar of the Episcopal Church has importance beyond just the immediate purpose of supporting the liturgy of the American church. It is one of the key sources of the calendar for the international daily office Oremus.[3]

Because of its relation to the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines follows this calendar rather closely.

Ranking of observances

The Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer identifies four categories of feasts: Principal Feasts, other Feasts of our Lord (including Sundays), other Major Feasts, and minor feasts. Two major fast days are also listed (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). In addition to these categories, further distinctions are made between feasts, to determine the precedence of feasts used when more than one feast falls on the same day. In addition, Lesser Feasts and Fasts gives further rules for the relative ranking of feasts and fasts. These rules of precedence all establish a ranking, from most to least important, as follows:

Days of fasting

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are appointed as fast days. Lesser fast days, called "days of special observance", are all the weekdays of Lent and every Friday in the year, with the exception that fasting is never observed during the Easter or Christmas seasons, or on Feasts of our Lord. The Episcopal Church does not prescribe the specific manner of observance of these days.

Baptismal feasts

The Great Vigil of Easter, Pentecost, All Saints' Day, and The Baptism of our Lord, are appointed as baptismal feasts. It is preferred that baptism be reserved for those occasions.

Calendar

Principal Feasts are in BOLD, ALL CAPS. Feasts of our Lord are in bold italics. Other Major Feasts and Fasts are in bold. Appropriate Collects and Prayers for use in celebrating the commemorations are in brackets.

Movable days

These celebrations can occur on different dates depending on the date of Easter, which has no fixed date. In addition, every Sunday in the year is observed as a "feast of our Lord".

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

See also

References

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