Sunday of the Dead in Germany

Totensonntag (Sunday of the Dead), also called Ewigkeitssonntag (Eternal Sunday) or Totenfest, is a northern German and Dutch Protestant religious festival of remembrance of the dead. It falls on the last Sunday before the First of the Sundays of Advent, and is the last Sunday of the liturgical year in the German Evangelical Church and the Protestant Kerk in the Netherlands. In Berlin, it replaces All Souls' Day (November 2).

In 1816, King Frederick William III of Prussia forced his cabinet to pass a decree stating that all Lutheran churches in areas under Prussian rule should observe the last Sunday before Advent as "a general celebration in memorial of the deceased". Other Lutheran churches in the rest of Germany eventually followed suit.