In Christian belief, a saint, also known as a hallow, is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term saint depends on the context and denomination. Official ecclesiastical recognition, and veneration, is conferred on some denominational saints through the process of canonization in the Catholic Church or glorification in the Eastern Orthodox Church after their approval. The saints are honored in the liturgical calendars of Evangelical Lutheranism and Anglicanism. In other nonconformist denominations, such as the Plymouth Brethren, and following from Pauline usage, saint refers broadly to any holy Christian without special recognition or selection.
While the English word saint (deriving from the Latin ) originated in Christianity, historians of religion tend to use the appellation "in a more general way to refer to the state of special holiness that many religions attribute to certain people", referring to the Hindu rishi, Sikh bhagat or guru, the Shintoist kami, the Taoist immortal or zhenren, the Jewish tzadik, the Islamic walī/fakir, and the Buddhist arhat or bodhisattva also as saints. Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official declaration, as in Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy or Eastern Orthodoxy, or by popular acclamation (see folk saint).
Etymology The word saint derives from the Latin sanctus, meaning "holy" or "consecrated", and entered English through Old French seint and Middle English saint, retaining its meaning as a holy person and historically used to refer to individuals regarded as holy.
The word hallow is synonymous with saint, the former derived from the Old English hālig, the same root as "holy", and refers to holy individuals. It is preserved in certain names and traditions celebrating saints, such as Allhallowtide, a period that includes All Hallows' Eve (Halloween) and All Hallows' Day.
General characteristics The Greek equivalent of the Latin is (hagios) 'holy'. This Greek word appears 235 times in the Greek New Testament. The King James Version of the Bible translates 191 times (as 'holy' or 'Holy') and 61 times (as 'saints').
The word was originally a technical one in ancient Roman religion, but due to its globalized use in Christianity the modern word saint is now also used as a translation of comparable terms for persons "worthy of veneration for their holiness or sanctity" in other religions.
Many religions also use similar concepts (but different terminology) to venerate persons worthy of some honor. Author John A. Coleman of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, wrote that saints across various cultures and religions have the following family resemblances:Coleman, John A., Conclusion: After sainthood, in Hawley, John Stratton, ed. Saints and Virtues Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. pp. 214–217.
exemplary model extraordinary teacher wonderworker or source of benevolent power intercessor a life often refusing material attachments or comforts possession of a special and revelatory relation to the holy.
The anthropologist Lawrence Babb, in an article about Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba, asks the question "Who is a saint?" and responds by saying that in the symbolic infrastructure of some religions, there is the image of a certain extraordinary spiritual person's "miraculous powers", to whom frequently a certain moral presence is attributed. These saintly figures, he asserts, are "the focal points of spiritual force-fields". They exert "powerful attractive influence on followers but touch the inner lives of others in transforming ways as well".Babb, Lawrence A. "Sathya Sai Baba's Saintly Play", in Hawley, John Stratton, ed. Saints and Virtues. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. pp. 168–170. .
History Old Testament In the Hebrew Bible, English "saints" most often renders terms of holiness, especially the adjective qādôš ("set apart, consecrated, holy"), and in the plural it appears as "holy ones" or "saints", with emphasis on consecration and ideally the absence of moral and ceremonial defilement. The Old Testament does not present a fixed category of individual saints though related ideas appear in prophet and martyr traditions in later narratives.
Apostolic Age In the Apostolic Age, New Testament writers use "saints" predominantly in the plural as a collective designation for Christians in a given locality; the only clear singular instance is distributive in Philippians 4:21 ("every saint"), so the term marks the church as a people set apart for God rather than an elite subgroup.
Paul makes this corporate sense explicit by identifying "the saints" with "you" in 1 Corinthians 6:2, so that oi hagioi functions as a self-designation for all Christians; he also addresses communities as "saints" in letter openings/closings and often speaks of "all the saints" to emphasize corporate unity across locations (Romans 1:7; 1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1; Phil 1:1; Colossians 1:2).
In practical matters he urges "service" and aid "for the saints," including the Jerusalem poor, sometimes with abbreviated phrasing that presumes this shared self-designation (e.g., 1 Cor 16:1; 2 Cor 8:4; 9:1, 12 ≈ Rom 15:26). Scholars also observe covenantal–eschatological and temple/priestly overtones in such language (e.g., judging the world/angels; participation in Christ’s altar). Other New Testament writers vary: calling believers hagioi is common in Hebrews and Jude, it is frequent in Revelation with an emphasis on prayer/endurance and is used for the same group as "believers/Christians," while 1 Peter does not use hagioi as Paul does (even as it speaks extensively of holiness).
Standard reference works concur that hagioi designates all believers (not a special class), that the plural, collective usage predominates, and that the underlying idea is consecration/belonging to God. Later Christian traditions (e.g. Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism) developed distinct practices of recognizing exemplary figures, but this stands apart from the New Testament’s collective usage.
By denomination Catholic Church
According to the Catholic Church, a saint may be anyone, whether recognized on Earth or not, who forms part of the "great cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1). These "may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones (cf. 2 Timothy 1:5)" who may have not always lived perfect lives, but "amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord". The title Saint denotes a person who has been formally canonized – that is, officially and authoritatively declared a saint – by the church as holder of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and is therefore believed to be in Heaven by the grace of God. There are many persons who the church believes to be in Heaven who have not been formally canonized and who are otherwise titled saints because of the fame of their holiness. Sometimes the word saint also denotes living Christians. The Second Vatican Council noted that some saints are commemorated by the whole church because they "are truly of universal importance", while many others have significance for "a particular Church or nation or family of religious" and their lives should be celebrated within those particular contexts.Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, paragraph 111, published on 4 December 1963, accessed on 28 July 2025
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "The patriarchs, prophets, and certain other Old Testament figures have been and always will be honored as saints in all the church's liturgical traditions."Catechism of the Catholic Church Chapter 2, Article 1, 61
In his book Saint of the Day, editor Leonard Foley says that the "[Saints'] surrender to God's love was so generous an approach to the total surrender of Jesus that the Church recognizes them as heroes and heroines worthy to be held up for our inspiration. They remind us that the Church is holy, can never stop being holy and is called to show the holiness of God by living the life of Christ."Saint of the Day, edited by Leonard Foley, OFM, (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2003), xvi.
The Catholic Church teaches that it does not make or create saints, but rather recognizes them. Proofs of heroic virtue required in the process of beatification will serve to illustrate in detail the general principles exposed aboveThe Catechism of the Catholic Church , from the Knights of Columbus site upon proof of their holiness or likeness to God.
On 3 January 993, Pope John XV became the first pope to proclaim a person a saint from outside the diocese of Rome: on the petition of the German ruler, he had canonized Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg. Before that time, the popular "cults", or venerations, of saints had been local and spontaneous and were confirmed by the local bishop.Luscombe, David and Riley-Smith, Jonathan. 2004. New Cambridge Medieval History: c.1024–c.1198, Volume 5. p. 12. Pope John XVIII subsequently permitted a cult of five Polish martyrs. Pope Benedict VIII later declared the Armenian hermit Simeon of Mantua to be a saint, but it was not until the pontificate of Pope Innocent III that the popes reserved to themselves the exclusive authority to canonize saints, so that local bishops needed the confirmation of the Pope. Walter of Pontoise was the last person in Western Europe to be canonized by an authority other than the Pope: Hugh de Boves, the Archbishop of Rouen, canonized him in 1153.William Smith, Samuel Cheetham, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (Murray, 1875), 283. Thenceforth a decree of Pope Alexander III in 1170 reserved the prerogative of canonization to the Pope, insofar as the Latin Church was concerned.
Alban Butler published Lives of the Saints in 1756, including a total of 1,486 saints. The latest revision of this book, edited by Herbert Thurston and Donald Attwater, contains the lives of 2,565 saints. Robert Sarno, an official of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints of the Holy See, expressed that it is impossible to give an exact number of saints.
The veneration of saints, in Latin , or the "cult of the Saints", describes a particular popular devotion or entrustment of one's self to a particular saint or group of saints. Although the term worship is sometimes used, it is only used with the older English connotation of honoring or respecting (dulia) a person. According to the church, divine worship is in the strict sense reserved only to God (latria) and never to the saints. One is permitted to ask the saints to intercede or pray to God for persons still on Earth,The Intercession of the Saints on Catholic.com just as one can ask someone on Earth to pray for him.