Wszystkich Świętych (All Saints Day) // Dzien Zaduszny (All Souls day)

Thank you Bzibzioh....I shall do that...

I miss Poland on this day. The atmosphere, the smell of candles, the taste of miodzik, the light over the cemetery in the evening ... that's a very special day.

jump on your bike this evening and ride through a couple of villages. the glow from the cemeteries will guide you. it's a beautiful sight.

Might be a bit cold for that...got a bit soft in my old age , but i will be venturing out in the car to the local town , passing through a few small villages on route.....I think it was the sight of all these glowing candles that made me realise that Poland was very different from the UK...The respect shown to the dead suprised me , and was one of the things that made me feel i was living in a better country...

The vatican has condemned halloween as anti christian (see link) i was out last night and the amount of people dressed in costume was amazing, the pubs were full of people in some great get ups. A hell (no pun) of a lot of very nice young ladies dressed in some very nice outfits made it a very enjoyable night.

telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6467253/Vatican-condemns-Halloween-as-anti-Christian.html

I went to Catholic school as a child (I'm American) and we celebrated Halloween in school and the next day we went to a special All Saint's Day mass. We didn't have any problems mixing up the fun day for kids with the solemn day of remembrance.

We had a Halloween party for our kids here in Poland and visited a few neighbors for trick or treating. Our neighbors were kind and gracious and pretended to be scared of our little guys. We also had a few older kids at our door and even the hike to the top floor of our apartment building didn't discourage them.

I agree with the other posters that the atmosphere at the cemetery on Nov 1st cannot be beaten. I think it can be a moving experience even for those people who are not esp religious.

I went for a drive quite late last night , it was really amazing to see all the cemetaries aglow with thousands of candles....not long after we had a gale blowing around these parts , so i hope everyones candles did not get blown over....

I was in a Polish village near Lodz with my girlfriend on All saints day. I went to the Mass with my gf and her mum, we stood by her Grandpa's grave. It looked very nice at night too.

The way Polish cemeteries are looked after makes me ashamed of the cemeteries in the UK. Most people do not put fresh flowers on the graves in the UK.

Next time I am in the UK I will visit my relatives graves and tidy them up and put fresh flowers down.

This is a very good tradition in my opinion.

Merged thread:
All Saint's Day in Poland

I know that it is customary in Poland for people to visit graves and leave candles and wreaths on All Saint's Day. But, what I was wondering, is what happens when all the relatives have moved to another country? Do they arrange for someone else to put candles on their relatives graves in Poland? Is there some kind of service that does this like a business?

Yes, often. Here is a service that does that in Warsaw. There are others in various cities. Generally, graves are well taken care of in Poland.

sprzataniegrobow.waw.pl

(choose English language)

if family (in Poland) can't get across country they visit a local cemetery and place candles and flowers at the cross, which serves a number of purposes including a place to lay wreaths for those buried elswhere or those lost with no grave (victims of war etc)

sometimes people will place a candle on an untended grave.

some folk contact other family members and come to some sort of arrangement.

some simply go another day.

The thing I is dislike about this day, is that Poles take to the roads en mass to drive to their relatives graves resulting in lots of people being killed on the roads. Genius.

Every year the media does a body count after the weekend how insane is that!!

That for me kinda sums up the thing, people dying to for the dead!!!

it's worse than that. they do a body count at the start and update it when necessary. nothing like keeping informed.

from: thenews.pl

''As families travel to cemeteries for All Saints weekend, 24 have died with 291 injured in 234 accidents on the roads in Poland''.

so...thats 24 more graves to have an accident on the way to next year....

I have a question that I will try to look in to myself but just thought someone might know.

Tonight is Halloween (Celtic festival), tomorrow All Saints day, both must be pre-Christian but all saints was adapted for ease of conversion, are they linked to each other in any way?

from the web:

Halloween actually began with the ancient Celtic tribes who lived in the British Isles. November 1 was a day of honoring the dead and celebrating the New Year. Christians combined the ancient practices and came up with All Saints Day, a Sacred Christian holiday meant to honor the Saints of the church who died, especially those who have been martyred for their faith. The night before became known as All Hallow’s Even or “holy evening,” later shortened to Halloween. In others words, Halloween is a unique blend of pagan and Christian rituals all designed to help us remember those who have died.

You are a very simpleminded fellow!

I thought as much but here is the thing I don't know, All saints is not celebrated in Ireland but in Poland, is there a connection there?

It might be dissimilar like a farming seasonal thing or just when the sundials go back an hour ;)

Death is another similarity to the events, the coming of winter perhaps?

I'll be heading out tomorrow, this is my favorite Polish holiday...even not being religious, this one seems the most honest. Enjoy All Saints! I do :)

cult of ancestors, in case of Hallo ween - definitely diluted and forgotten!
:)

a nice glow of candles. Come visit Powązki everyone!

This is tonight!

Today was nice... the city was nearly empty, and it wasn't too cold.

In a rare outburst of patriotism, I lit a candle and put it on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Powazki is probably lovely tonight, but I chickened out and went home when the rain came.

High winds have caused some cemeteries to be closed by the authorities, who are concerned that trees might fall. Has this ever happened before?

If they stay closed during All Saints Day then I can see there being problems.....

We had a flurry of snow here in the east this morning. If the bad weather continues, there will be more carnage than usual on the roads, as millions go to visit family graves across the country. Let's hope the weather improves. I spoke too soon; the rain has just started again.

@Roger5
I don't think it has happened before.
I saw it on the news this morning. Some people were understanding. Others were annoyed.
I think they need to sort it out before tomorrow. People often travel for hours to reach a given cementary. Not to mention, it's an important day for most people, stressful enough because of the traffic.

Grzegorz seems to have calmed down so they just need to make sure there's no danger involved for people visiting the cementaries.

PiS government has just announced that cemeteries will be closed for 3 days - it means no visits on 1st and 2nd November.
Probably it is the first time in history of Poland when Poles can`t practise their perennial tradition.

Sad, though necessary this year.

I was going to go with all my family and visit 4 cemeteries coz maf said it is safe outside in the fresh air.