Holiday Calendar

Feast of St. Anthony

Next celebratedSunday, June 13, 2027

Anthony of Padua died at the city's gates on 13 June 1231, and the pope ordered the day kept a year later. In Rio a statue of him held an army captain's commission, its pay directed to his feast - still being drawn in 1911.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJune 13
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYReligion
SUBCATEGORYChristian
ORIGIN

Religious Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Catholic Church (Pope Gregory IX)
FIRST OBSERVED
1232
“The bull Cum dicat Dominus told the bishops of the Church to keep Anthony's feast every June 13, months after Gregory IX canonized him.
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A papal bull fixed the date within a year.

Pope Gregory IX canonized Anthony at Spoleto on May 30, 1232, less than a year after the friar died. In June of that year the same pope issued the bull Cum dicat Dominus, announcing the canonization to the bishops of the Church and ordering them to keep his feast every June 13.

See the surviving canonization bullvia Centro Studi Antoniani
INTRO

An officer's salary once paid for his feast in Rio

Portuguese forces at Rio de Janeiro broke a French landing party in 1710, and the credit went to a statue of a Franciscan friar kept in the city's convent. The statue was promoted to captain. A royal charter confirmed the rank and directed that the pay be spent on the saint's feast and the ornament of his chapel.

That friar is Saint Anthony of Padua. The Feast of St. Anthony falls on June 13, the day he died at Arcella on the edge of Padua. He had been dead for nearly five hundred years by the time the commission came through.

He was promoted twice more, and the salary was still being drawn in 1911. A government legal opinion killed the claim in 1923. Neither a saint nor his image, it held, has the legal personality that owning anything requires.

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ORIGINS

Feast of St. Anthony history

INTRODUCTION

Fernando Martins de Bulhões was born into a wealthy Lisbon family around 1195. He joined the Augustinian canons in 1210. In 1220 the relics of five Franciscans martyred in Morocco were brought back to Portugal, and he left the Augustinians to become a friar minor.

He set out for Morocco himself and never arrived. Illness turned him back, and the ship carrying him home was blown off course to Sicily. He reached Italy by accident, and everything he is remembered for happened afterwards.

CHAPTER 01

The letter that made him a teacher

Asked to preach at a priestly ordination at Forlì, he turned out to be formidable at it. Francis of Assisi sent him a short letter that opened, in Benedict XVI's rendering, "I would like you to teach the brethren theology".

He began at Bologna and became one of the first theology teachers the Franciscans had, and probably the first. Gregory IX, who had heard him preach, called him the Ark of the Testament.

CHAPTER 02

A Lent in Padua, then a death at the gates

His last Lenten course, preached at Padua in 1231, drew audiences said to reach 30,000. No church in the city could hold them, so he preached outdoors.

He was dying by the end of it. He died on June 13 at Arcella, at the gates of Padua.

CHAPTER 03

Fixed by a bull, dropped, restored

What survives of the decision is a sheet of parchment, kept in Padua with Gregory IX's lead seal still hanging from it. The bull, Cum dicat Dominus, went past declaring a man a saint: it instructed the bishops of the Church to keep June 13 as his feast. The canonization itself had come at Spoleto, eleven months after the death.

The date did not hold everywhere. Anthony has no entry at all in the calendar Pius V promulgated in 1568. Sixtus V put the feast back for the universal Church in 1586, with a brief calling him a man of exceptional sanctity endowed with divine wisdom.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Death at the gates of Padua

Anthony died on June 13 and was buried four days later, on a Tuesday, the weekday his devotion still keeps.

Gregory IX orders the feast

The pope canonized him at Spoleto in May, then told the bishops of the Church to keep June 13.

The tongue found incorrupt

Bonaventure presided over the translation of the relics and reported that the tongue alone had not decayed.

Sixtus V puts the feast back

The brief Immensa returned the day to the calendar of the universal Church after the 1568 revision dropped it.

Lisbon's first marcha contest

José Leitão de Barros staged the first Marchas Populares competition at the Capitólio cinema in Parque Mayer.

Named a Doctor of the Church

Pius XII gave Anthony the title Doctor Evangelicus, the second Franciscan to be so named.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Feast of St. Anthony

LAW

A Paduan debtors' law, credited to his preaching.

The Paduan commune passed a law in March 1231 protecting debtors who could not pay their creditors, an outcome the standard critical study of the sources credits to Anthony's preaching. A copy survives in the city's museum, an early document in the history of bankruptcy.

PROTEST

The patron now marches against evictions

Housing campaigners walk a Procissão do Santo António Despejado, the Procession of the Evicted St. Anthony, from his church in Lisbon toward a barracks earmarked for a hotel. They argue that the June festivities themselves are being gentrified for visitors.

LITURGY

The high point of the shrine's year

The basilica in Padua celebrated 12,623 Masses in 2024, the ordinary output of a shrine that works all year. Its own attendance tally sets June 13 apart from every other day on that calendar.

BY THE NUMBERS

Feast of St. Anthony by the Numbers

~100,000
Pilgrims in Padua, June 13, 2026
979,274
Visits to Padua's Reliquary Chapel, 2024
650,000+
Visitors to the 1981 relic display
20
Marchas parading in Lisbon, 2026
26
Couples at Lisbon's first mass wedding, 1958

GOOD TO KNOW

Feast of St. Anthony Around the World

Italy

Padua closes its public offices for its patron, and the day ends with a procession of 66 groups carrying the votive statue and the relics of the chin and the finger

Portugal

Lisbon marries a group of couples at the cathedral on the feast, then parades them from Largo de Santo António to Praça do Município before a reception at the Estufa Fria

United States

Boston's North End keeps the largest American observance in August rather than June, founded in 1919 by immigrants from Montefalcione and built around a ten-hour procession

Poland

sent more organised pilgrims to the basilica in Padua in 2024 than any other foreign country, 13,343 of the 46,309 counted from 52 nations

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Feast of St. Anthony

EDITOR'S PICK

Watch the Marchas Populares come down the Avenida

Lisbon's neighbourhood marchas compete down Avenida da Liberdade, each one built on a theme of its own. Alfama took the 2026 title with "Os santos devem estar loucos", on the gap between the marcha's tradition and how the neighbourhood has changed.

GRILL

Grill sardines and put out a street altar

Grilled sardines, flowered garlands and homemade altars are the shape the day takes in the Lisbon streets. An altar carries a statue, candles, a rosary, a vessel for coins and prayer requests written on slips of paper.

GIVE

Give someone a basil plant

The Lisbon matchmaking custom is to hand a pot of basil to the person you are interested in, with a love message tucked into it. It sits alongside the fado and the dancing as one of the traditions the city keeps on the day.

PRAY

Pray the Tredicina in the thirteen days before

The Tredicina is the run of preparation days the basilica in Padua keeps ahead of the feast, closing with the Transito on the evening of June 12. The shrine publishes the full programme each year.

READ

Read one of his sermons

Anthony left two cycles of sermons, the Sunday Sermons and the Sermons on the Saints, written for the Franciscan Order's own preachers and teachers of theology. His authentic sermons for Sundays and feast days were published at Padua in three volumes in 1979.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Feast of St. Anthony?

1 / 8

Which pope canonized Anthony and ordered the June 13 feast?

Answer

It is a municipal holiday in Lisbon and a patron saint's holiday in Padua, where public offices close. It is not one of Portugal's mandatory national holidays, and for most of the world June 13 is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

15sources
10primary records
11independently dated
Primary records
Centro Studi Antoniani2022
Sacra Vestigia - Sant'Antonio di Padova
The original 1232 canonization bull, held in Padua and restored for study.
View source
Pontifical Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua
Ricognizioni
The shrine's account of every examination of the saint's remains since 1263.
View source
Holy See2010-02
Benedict XVI, General Audience of 10 February 2010
A pope's summary of Anthony's life, his sermons and Francis of Assisi's letter to him.
View source
Pontifical Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua2021-06
Solennità del 13 giugno in Basilica del Santo
The shrine's published programme for the feast, the Tredicina and the Transito.
View source
Consultor Jurídico2015-07
O caso do soldo do santo que tinha patente militar
The full 1923 government opinion on the army salary paid to a statue in Rio.
View source
Câmara Municipal de Lisboa2024-06
Casamentos de Santo António: Lisboa celebra amor e tradição
The city's own record of its collective wedding, from the 1958 first edition on.
View source
EGEAC Lisboa Cultura2026-06
Alfama vence Marchas Populares 2026
Result and participation figures for the 2026 parade down Avenida da Liberdade.
View source
Camera di Commercio di Padova2025-06
Il 13 giugno gli uffici sono chiusi per la festa del Santo Patrono
An official Padua closure notice for the patron saint's feast.
View source
Saint Anthony's Feast, Boston
About Us
The Boston organisers on the 1919 founding, the August weekend and the long procession.
View source
Informador
Código do Trabalho, Artigo 234.º: Feriados obrigatórios
The statutory list of Portugal's mandatory national holidays.
View source
Additional coverage
Internet Archive1948
Raphael M. Huber, St. Anthony of Padua: Doctor of the Church Universal
A 1948 critical study cataloguing the papal documents behind the feast.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2026-08
St. Anthony of Padua
Biography, patronages, and how the feast is kept in the streets of Lisbon.
View source
AgenSIR2026-06
La Basilica del Santo accoglie centomila pellegrini
Attendance, Masses and procession detail from the 2026 feast in Padua.
View source
Il Resto del Carlino2025-02
Alla Basilica di Sant'Antonio a Padova crescono i pellegrini in visita
The friars' 2024 tally of pilgrims, nationalities, Masses and chapel visits.
View source
Guinness World Records
Fastest canonisation
The 337-day record held by St. Peter of Verona.
View source
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