All Souls Day or the Feast of All Souls or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed is a Catholic holiday that is celebrated on the day after All Saints’ Day on November 2.
On this holiday, as well as on the All Saints’ Day, it is a custom to visit the cemetery and burn candles for the deceased.
The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed was created at the initiative of the saint, Benedictine abbot of Cluny, Saint Odilo. At the end of the 1st millennium, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed was already marked in many places after the All Saints’ Day.
That Commemoration Day was officially introduced by St. Odilo in Cluny in 998, on which was dependent about a thousand Benedictine monasteries. This holiday spread all across Europe through Benedictines. The Vatican officially confirmed this holiday on 1311.
In the year of 1748, Spain was granted the privilege that the priests could serve three masses on this day: one for whomever they wanted, the second for the purpose of the Holy Father, and the third for all the faithful dead. The Pope Benedict XV expanded that privilege throughout the Church in 1915.
