Holy days of obligation in England, Wales and Scotland

Great Britain has two Catholic bishops’ conferences, and they keep different lists of the days on which Catholics are obliged to attend Mass. A page that gives one list for the whole of Britain is wrong for a large part of it, and the difference is not academic: the Epiphany is a day of obligation in Liverpool and is not one in Motherwell.

What “obligation” means

The underlying law is the same everywhere. Canon 1247 of the Church’s Code obliges the faithful to take part in the Mass on Sundays and on the other holy days of obligation, and to abstain from work or business that would get in the way of the day. Canon 1248 then says the obligation is satisfied by attending Mass wherever it is celebrated in a Catholic rite, either on the day itself or on the evening of the day before. That last clause is why almost every parish in this directory lists an evening Mass on the eve of a holy day, and it is the reason the Saturday vigil exists at all.

Canon 1246 lists ten holy days for the universal Church alongside every Sunday, and then gives each bishops’ conference the power, with the prior approval of the Holy See, to suppress some of them or to move them to a Sunday. Both British conferences have used that power, and they have used it differently. That is the whole explanation for the divergence below.

The obligation binds Catholics, and it has never bound anybody else. It also carries the ordinary exemptions the Catechism describes, illness and the care of infants among them; when the Scottish bishops restored the obligation after the pandemic, from Sunday 2 January 2022, they restated in the same breath that people who were ill or caring for those at risk were not obliged to attend.

England and Wales

The Liturgy Office of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales publishes the list, and it stands as follows.

Every Sunday. The Nativity of the Lord, 25 December. The Epiphany of the Lord, 6 January. The Ascension of the Lord, the Thursday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter. Saints Peter and Paul, 29 June. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 15 August. All Saints, 1 November.

Three dates in the history of that list explain its present shape.

Since 1970 the obligation has been removed from 1 January, from 19 March and from 8 December, all of which remain solemnities but none of which is a day of obligation in England and Wales.

In November 1984 the conference agreed that when the Epiphany, the Assumption, All Saints and Saints Peter and Paul fall on a Saturday or a Monday, the solemnity is observed and the obligation discharged on the Sunday. That rule is still in force, and it is why All Saints appears on a Sunday in some years and on 1 November in others.

In 2006 the Holy See gave recognitio to a decision moving the Epiphany, the Ascension and the Body and Blood of the Lord to Sundays. The first two of those were then reversed: with effect from the First Sunday of Advent 2017 the bishops of England and Wales reinstated the Epiphany and the Ascension as days of obligation on their own days, a decision the conference says was confirmed by the Holy See. Corpus Christi was not reinstated, and has been kept on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday ever since 2006.

So in England and Wales the Ascension is a Thursday obligation, the Epiphany is a 6 January obligation unless that date lands next to a Sunday, and Corpus Christi is a Sunday.

Scotland

The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland keeps a shorter list, and Scottish dioceses publish it as follows.

Every Sunday. The Nativity of the Lord, 25 December. The Ascension of the Lord, on the Thursday. Saints Peter and Paul, 29 June. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 15 August. All Saints, 1 November.

The Epiphany is not on it, and neither is Corpus Christi. Both are solemnities in Scotland and neither carries the obligation, which is the single most common thing for a visitor from England to get wrong.

Scotland has the same Saturday and Monday rule, applied to the three moveable dates: where Saints Peter and Paul, the Assumption or All Saints falls on a Monday or a Saturday, the day of obligation is kept on the adjacent Sunday. Christmas Day is never moved.

Two published diocesan calendars show the rule working. The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh listed the 2025 days of obligation as the Ascension on Thursday 29 May, Saints Peter and Paul on Sunday 29 June, the Assumption on Friday 15 August, All Saints on Sunday 2 November and Christmas on Thursday 25 December; All Saints appears there on 2 November because 1 November 2025 was a Saturday. A parish of the Diocese of Aberdeen lists the 2026 days as the Ascension on Thursday 14 May, Saints Peter and Paul on Sunday 28 June, the Assumption on Sunday 16 August, All Saints on Sunday 1 November and Christmas on Friday 25 December. In 2026 both 29 June and 15 August fall next to a Sunday, and both have moved.

A note on the Scottish sourcing

We could not find a dated list published by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland itself. Its website carries no liturgical calendar section, its published index of conference decrees covers other subjects entirely, and its media office refused an anonymous request. The Scottish list above is therefore taken from what Scottish dioceses publish, cross-checked across two of them for two different years, and it is stated with the date we read it rather than with the year of a decree we could not open. If you know where that decree is published, tell us and we will cite it instead.

Where the two lists differ

For a reader crossing the border, the difference comes down to one day. The Epiphany, 6 January, is an obligation in England and Wales and is not one in Scotland. Everything else on the two lists matches: Christmas, the Ascension, Saints Peter and Paul, the Assumption and All Saints appear on both, and Corpus Christi appears on neither as a weekday obligation.

The transfer rule also covers a slightly different set of feasts in each place, because the English and Welsh version includes the Epiphany and the Scottish version has no Epiphany to include.

Confirming the Mass time where you are

This directory holds the ordinary weekly schedule and deliberately does not hold holy day schedules. Parishes announce them a week or two beforehand, they change from year to year, and a stale holy day time is worse than none at all, so we hold what is stable and point you at the parish for the rest. The reasoning is set out on our about page.

Three practical steps. Find the church on our directory of churches or through the Mass times for your county, and use the parish website or phone number on its page. Read the parish’s own newsletter, which is where a holy day schedule almost always appears first. Where a church streams, its webcam page will often carry the holy day Mass as well as the Sunday one.

A holy day schedule is rarely the same as a Sunday one. Expect an evening Mass on the eve, an early morning Mass on the day, and often a lunchtime Mass in a town centre or a cathedral aimed at people who work nearby. If you are going for the first time, our guide to what happens at Mass covers the hour itself.