In
general, all faithful people are "saints". But some people,
by their life and witness, are clear role models for the saints of
god, and are designated "Saint" as a sign that we recognize
their witness. There is no one official source that can declare that
so-and-so is a "Saint", and that so-and-so-else is not. The
recognition of a Saint's witness can only come by consensus of the
Church as a whole (the Church is "the whole company of all
faithful people").
There are Saints who have been
Canonized by the Roman Catholic Church and by the Orthodox church,
who would generally not be recognized as Saints by the rest of the
Church. There are local Saints who are recognized by those to whom
they witnessed, but are not recognized by the church as a whole.
There are Saints that just about everybody agrees on, and Saints that
only Anglicans would recognize (like Thomas Cranmer, Saint and
Martyr) and some of those that even most Anglicans wouldn't recognize
(Like King Charles I, Saint and Martyr).
Anglicans are
perfectly comfortable with this level of anarchy.
Although we
do not canonize Saints, we do have a process of "Kalendarizing"
saints. A notable witness to the faith may be listed in the Kalendar
with a special day of observation. The Saints who are given
red-letter days in the Kalendar (the equivalent of your "Holy
Days of Obligation") tend to be the new-testament Saints that
everyone agrees on: Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Jean Baptiste, and
so on. Others are listed as "black-letter days" without
distinction between how formal or extensive their recognition is:
Justin Martyr, Doctor, c. 165 is listed in exactly the same way as
Florence Nightingale, Nurse, 1910. Charles Inglis, the first Anglican
Bishop in Canada, is listed right beside Laurence, Archdeacon of
Rome. Of course, a person doesn't *have* to be Kalendarized in order
to be considered a Saint by at least some Anglicans. There are
Anglicans who already refer to Mother Teresa as "Saint Teresa of
Calcutta" -- a slightly ironic recognition in the light that her
own church cannot yet recognize her as such.
Does this
mean we consider Florence Nightingale to be a Saint? Well, there's
not much question she was one of the saints, and she certainly is a
witness to many of a Christian life well-lived. So the answer is, as
for so many things Anglican:
Some of us do, and some of us
don't.