Is Hallowe’en Christian or Pagan?

By Carole Hornsby Haynes October 29, 2025 

The contemporary celebration of Halloween is controversial. Many view it as a macabre celebration of evil while others view it as Christian. Its complicated past goes back thousands of years with roots in both paganism and Christianity. 

In the church calendar, Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve) is the beginning of a triduum of holidays commemorating the dead, continuing with All Saints’ Day on November 1 and All Souls’ Day on November 2. 

The holiday was totally Christian from the beginning. The Christian origins can be traced to the Festival of Pentecost that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus – Easter – in 33 A.D. This date is considered to be the birth of the Christian Church. 

After Christianity was legalized in 313, feasts commemorating saints, and especially martyrs, were held in various cities. In the West the commemoration occurred on the first Sunday after Pentecost. On May 13, 609, Pope Boniface IV established a feast to honor the Virgin Mary and all martyrs.  

With the desire to honor so many martyrs, especially during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletion (284-305) that were the worst and most extensive, clearly a common feast day seemed necessary. Pope Gregory III moved the observance from May 13 to November 1 around 731 and expanded the festival to include all saints and martyrs – All Saints Day – initially for the Diocese of Rome.  

In 1839, Pope Gregory IV officially designated this celebration for the entire Catholic Church. Moving the Christian festival to November 1 continued the trend of Christian festivals to follow the Roman solar calendar that aligned with the agricultural seasons and the solstices and equinoxes. 

The night before, October 31, was All Hallow’s Eve– Hallowe’en. On November 2, Christians celebrated All Souls Day. The names of deceased loved ones were read and prayers were offered up. 

The pagan origins of Halloween are found in the celebrations of ancient Celtic tribes who lived in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. For the Celts, November 1 was the beginning of a new year and the onset of winter. On October 31, the eve of the new year, they celebrated the Festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead which meant “summer’s end.” 

The eve of Samhain was a time of Celtic pagan sacrifice. During this festival, Celts believed the souls of the dead, including ghosts, goblins, elves, and witches, returned to harm the living, especially those who had inflicted harm on them during their lifetime. In order to scare away the evil spirits, people extinguished their hearth fires. Druids, their priests and spiritual teachers, would build a huge bonfire to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to Celtic deities. People would wear costumes of animal heads and skins to protect themselves from evil spirits. 

In Christian Ireland, Samhain customs continued with bonfires, wearing disguises and carving lamps out of turnips to hold candles to ward off evil spirits.   

Medieval Britain held celebrations for the harvest of grain, which ended on November 1 with the Apple Harvest. The American game of bobbing for apples has its origin in this celebration. Those without land or cattle would go to neighbors to ask for food to store away for the winter.  Another tradition was that of groups of farmers going door-to-door collecting food and materials for a village feast and bonfire.Those who gave were promised prosperity; those who did not give were threatened with misfortune. As the belief in purgatory grew (believed to be a place where people’s souls go after death to be purified for heaven), prayers for the dead to help them in purgatory became part of the medieval All Hallows. This often became combined with the use of turnip lanterns and costumes as ‘souling and guising.’  This practice was most common in Scotland and Ireland. 

With the Irish Catholic migration to the United States in the 1800s during the potato famine came the Hallowe’en customs of souling and wearing costumes and disguises. Door to door requests for food became Americanized as “trick or treat” and pumpkin lanterns replaced turnip lanterns because pumpkins were more plentiful in North America. 

In the late 20th century contemporary pagan groups emerged and held their own festivals. Many have revived the celebration of Samhain on November 1 with some referring to themselves as witches. 

All Saints Day and All Souls Day are still celebrated on November 1 by the Western Catholic Church and many Protestant churches, including Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist. Special services are held where those who have lost loved ones are invited and names of the deceased are read aloud. Prayers are lifted up in their memory and candles might be lit to memorialize their lives. 

All Saints Day as well as All Souls Day clearly are rooted in Christian belief, despite some pagan trappings that may have survived and have remained attached to their celebration. Halloween is a time of celebration for Christians.