Someone asked me to explain the place of the saints in the Episcopal Church. First, a little background. In the New Testament, “saints” was a generic term, used to refer to Christians, members of the body of Christ. Quickly though, some Christians began to receive particular honor, especially after their death, and especially if they were martyred. In the Early Church and in the Middle Ages, whether someone became a saint or not was largely a product of the initiative of those who were devoted to them. Over time, however, the Catholic Church began to develop a process for determining whether someone was a saint. Now that process involves a fairly rigorous investigation that includes medical and scientific analysis of alleged miracles.

In the sixteenth century, the saints came under fire. Most Protestants saw devotion to the saints as misguided or as downright idolatry. In the English Reformation, many of the local and obscure saints were removed from the calendar. The Roman Catholic Church elevated no one to sainthood for most of the sixteenth century.

In Anglicanism, “sainthood” isn’t really an official label. We call people saints, like the Twelve Disciples, or Mary, or prominent church figures from the Early Church and Middle Ages, like St. Francis. We tend not to call people “saints” who have been elevated to sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church since the sixteenth century unless we are very Anglo-Catholic.

The Episcopal Church, and indeed the Anglican Communion, no longer elevates people to sainthood. However, in the Book of Common Prayer, there is a calendar that provides dates to commemorate not only the saints of the New Testament and Church History, but also people who have led exemplary lives in more recent times. The daily office calendar provides biographies of these people. You can find it here. Additions to the calendar are made by General Convention.