All Saints Day in Hungary

Though it is beginning to crop up here and there - mostly as an excuse for a party at nightclubs and discos in the bigger cities - Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, is not a traditional celebration in Hungary. All Saints Day, on the other hand, is. The first of November is a national holiday of remembrance and Hungarians use the occasion to visit the graves of relatives and loved ones across the country. It is the biggest travel day in Hungary, comparable to Thanksgiving in the United States. The larger cemeteries in urban areas are so busy they have to be manned by traffic cops, but even smaller cemeteries in little villages like the one I call home have the power to draw several hundred visitors on this day. 

Most people visit after sunset and place candles and lanterns on the graves. After a few hours, the entire cemetery glows in what I can only describe as a sacred light. It truly is a sight to see. My family and I did not travel to visit graves this year. Instead, we went to the local cemetery and put several lit lanterns beneath the crucifix near the funeral chapel, one for each branch of our extended families. We then visited the graves of a recently deceased neighbor and the man who built the house in which we now live. A steady stream of people came and went during the time we spent at the village cemetery. At one point, I counted at least a hundred, which is remarkable considering the population of our village is a mere six hundred. I imagine nearly a thousand people visited the village cemetery over the course of the entire evening.  

The remembrances slip into All Souls Day. The candles and lanterns continue to glow long after the last visitor has left; sometimes they burn for as along as a week. The cemeteries possess a solemn sort of beauty in early November. There is something about those candles and lanterns glowing in the dark - so reverential and dignified, and yes, even holy.