List of saints/Talk

Could someone who knows the procedure describe how someone gets to be canonised?

And perhaps standardise their nomenclature before we get too many more?

Good idea, Malcolm. This is what I suggested to MichaelTinkler a couple of days ago:

Regarding names: I'm personally inclined to naming pages with the saint's name, and location or other description to distinguish between eg Augustine of Hippo and Augustine of Canterbury. Problem is that other Wikipedians may have already made a link to Saint XXX - that's how I found Saint Columba, for instance. It shouldn't be a *huge* problem, though.

The current Wikipedia pages with Saint at the start probably should be changed to just their name (and location if necessary) - must watch out for the backlinks too.

-- Claudine

Well, I'll probably be adding saints from time to time from the old encyclopedia, so I'll try to name them as you suggest -- Malcolm Farmer

---

I've removed Saint from those people in the list who had them before their name. I think the title of this page would imply that all the individuals listed are considered saints. 8-> If their canonicity is in doubt, this should be stated in the individual saint's biography. -- Claudine

---

Suggest we move the list of saints to a "Saints/Listing? of saints" page and keep the "Saints" page itelf for definition, description.

Ok, done...

---

Uhhh sorry to break up the party, but the eastern Orthodox and Ethiopian churches recognise a completely different list of saints than the Catholic Church and the Anglicans have their own take on the subject too, I believe. Are we fgoing to lump them all together here?

Anyone know if Butlers Lives of the Saints is out of copyright yet?

---

this is just aiming at listing wikipedia-relevant saints, I thought, not an exclusive list. The canonization process, will, of necessity, be western since the Orthodox don't really have much of a process. If you mean the TITLE Hosios, that's just language, and means Saint. Feel free to add any Orthodox or Ethiopian saints, and to revise any current listings. Don't remove sainthood from anyone just because another group doesn't 'recognize' it, just mention the fact in a freestanding paragraph or sentence. This is part of why I favor calling people by their names rather than by the title 'saint,' by the way. --MichaelTinkler

---

Using the table we can say which church recognises a particular saint and which doesn't.

---

looks good. Can we use "semi" besides yes and no in the mythical column? (for ones like Josaphat, who IIRC actually came from a garbled account of Buddha)

---

I have some nomenclature and category questions. First, for saints who are New Testament figures, such as the Apostles and Evangelists, would it be safe to assume they're in both the Catholic and Orthodox columns? I'm thinking yes.

Second, how should we handle saints with multiple apellations? For example, Eastern Orthodoxy refers to John the Baptist both by that title, and also as John the Forerunner. I think the author of the Gospel of John is called both [John the Evangelist]? and [John the Theologian]?. And then there's Mary, the Virgin Mary, the Holy Virgin Mary, Holy Mother of God and Queen of the Universe Mary, and on and on. A related problem comes with someone like [Dionysius the Areopagite]?. He's remembered as a first-century saint in the Orthodox Church, and there are at least a couple different writings attributed to him. But many scholars think the works in question weren't written until the fourth or fifth century, and therefore refer to their author as Pseudo-Dionysius or Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

Is there any reason not to link the biblical saints to their respective entries that got started from the list of Bible characters, or to include the full tradition of these saints on their respecive pages? The only reason not to I can think of is that Protestants would typically accept the Biblical accounts of what these people said and did, but not necessarily the full tradition of how and when they died, or even what they did that's not recorded in Scripture. Maybe just specify which parts are biblical and which parts of the story are extrabiblical?

--Wesley

---

About the alphabetical order of the saints, this is not consistent. An inconsistent alphabetical ordering could result in saint a being added who is already in the table. I nearly did this with St Nicholas.

I suggest that they all be ordered, by Christian name (a.k.a First name), because most saints are known by that name. I've moved St Nicholas (or Myra) to Nicholas's place and find the Thomas More, could be moved to Thomas's place.

Also the table information of newly added saints may need to be checked by those in the know. Karl Palmen

---

I agree about the alphabetical ordering by first name; where these are the same, then we can go by the last name or attribute modifier ("of Mytown" or "the Great", etc.) This is about the only bit of information that every one of them has. I'll try to work on this as I can, but please don't wait for me. ;-) --Wesley