Synaxis Synaxis of All Saints

All Saints Sunday is celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost and closes the movable annual liturgical cycle that begins with Pascha. The feast dates to great antiquity: already in the fourth century St. John Chrysostom delivered a homily in its honor, calling it the culmination of the fruits brought forth by the descent of the Holy Spirit — the Church glorifies all the saints who have pleased God from the beginning of the world: forefathers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, monastics, and all the righteous, known and unknown, revealed and hidden from human knowledge. The theological meaning of the feast is a testimony that the fruit of the Holy Spirit's descent upon the apostles at Pentecost has been the sanctification and glorification of a multitude of saints in every subsequent age of church history, down to the present day.