12. Catholics Gave Us the Term Halloween
While the Celts gave us many of our Halloween traditions through the festival of Samhain, the Catholic Church gave us the name Halloween itself. As the Catholic Church set about Christianizing Europe, it tried to incorporate pagan traditions into proper Christian holidays to make the religion more enticing and interesting to European pagans. One holiday that received this treatment was Samhain.
The Catholic Church moved All Saint’s Day, which was originally in May, to November 1st, the day after Samhain, to incorporate the pagan rites and traditions of Samhain into a significant Christian holiday. The Church began to refer to October 31st as All Hallow’s Eve, as a standard early name of All Saint’s Day was All Hallow’s or All Hallow’s Day.
Over time, All Hallow’s Eve began to be shortened to Hallow’s Eve. Over time, this became shortened even further to Hallowe’en, a shortened contraction of the evening. Once the apostrophe was dropped, we have the holiday as we know it. In many parts of the world, the Catholic, or at least Christian, association with Halloween is still quite active. Many countries hold Halloween church services that include visiting graves to light candles. Some Christians also abstain from eating meat on Halloween, as other holy days, and eat vegetarian autumn food including potato, pumpkin, and apple.