Where the traditions land

Population figures are each tradition's own most recent published count. Eligibility is set against the World Christian Database, the standard reference for global denominational data.

Why the disagreement

This question splits almost entirely along Reformation lines, with one additional wrinkle from two traditions that reject the practice for a second, independent reason.

Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox teaching affirm it directly, grounded in the doctrine of the Communion of Saints: the Church includes the living and the dead together, united in Christ, so asking a saint in heaven to pray for you is treated as no different in kind from asking a living Christian friend to pray for you. The Catechism states plainly, "we can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world." Orthodox practice expresses the same conviction visually — icons of the saints, understood not as objects of worship but as a kind of invitation to their intercession, are a constant feature of Orthodox devotional life.

Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, Southern Baptist, and Pentecostal teaching reject the practice, on the grounds that Scripture neither commands nor promises it, and that it risks compromising Christ's unique role as mediator. Article XXII calls the invocation of saints, alongside Purgatory, "a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture." Lutheran teaching draws a more precise line than a flat rejection: the Augsburg Confession's defenders permit honoring the saints — "that we may follow their faith and good works" — while explicitly denying Scripture teaches asking them for help, since it "sets before us the one Christ as the Mediator." The Westminster Confession states the underlying principle most broadly: religious worship, including prayer, belongs to God alone, "not to angels, saints, or any other creature."

Seventh-day Adventist and Jehovah's Witness teaching reject the practice for that same mediatorial reason, and add a second, independent one specific to their own view of death: the saints in heaven aren't consciously there yet to hear anything. Adventist teaching holds the dead are asleep, unconscious, until the resurrection; Jehovah's Witness teaching agrees prayer is an act of worship owed to God alone, and adds that God "does not assign others to hear our prayers" — a request directed at someone who, by either tradition's own account of death, isn't presently capable of hearing it.

LDS teaching directs all prayer to God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, and doesn't have a doctrine of departed saints available for intercession in the first place. Notably, LDS teaching uses the word "saint" differently than every other tradition here: it's the standard term for a living, current member of the church — "Latter-day Saints" — not a title reserved for the deceased and glorified, which means the question, as commonly framed, doesn't quite translate into LDS teaching's own vocabulary.

Solving the disagreement

Between the traditions permitting invocation of saints and the ones rejecting it on mediatorial grounds, the real dispute is about whether asking a departed believer for prayer compromises Christ's unique mediatorial role or simply exercises it, since the saints could equally be praying to Christ on someone's behalf, no differently than intercessory prayer among the living. Historical practice offers evidence for both sides: early Christian inscriptions at martyrs' tombs show requests for the martyrs' prayers well before the third century, while the New Testament's own explicit teaching on prayer never depicts anyone praying to a deceased believer. That's a real dispute over how much weight extra-biblical early Christian practice should carry alongside Scripture's own silence on the specific question, not a dispute either side is approaching carelessly.

Seventh-day Adventist and Jehovah's Witness teaching's additional objection is a separate kind of disagreement from the mediatorial one, resting on the same underlying anthropological question this format keeps circling back to: whether any part of a person survives bodily death consciously, or whether nothing does until a future resurrection. If the second view is correct, the mediatorial dispute doesn't even need settling, since there's no one currently listening on the other end regardless of who's authorized to be asked.

LDS teaching's difference is more basic than a doctrinal dispute: it uses the operative word differently, applying "saint" to living members rather than the deceased, which means the underlying practice this question asks about isn't something LDS teaching has taken a position on so much as a category it doesn't currently use the same way.

Sources

Same standing source per tradition on every post, not hunted per question.

• Catholic — Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Eastern Orthodox — Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (binding across all jurisdictions); The Longer Catechism of St. Philaret of Moscow (widely used, not binding on every jurisdiction)
• Oriental Orthodox — Catechism of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty (Amazon — no full free text found)
• Anglican — Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
• Lutheran — Book of Concord
• Reformed/Presbyterian — Westminster Confession of Faith
• Methodist/Wesleyan — Articles of Religion
• Southern Baptist Convention — Baptist Faith & Message 2000
• Pentecostal (Trinitarian) — Assemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths
• Seventh-day Adventist — 28 Fundamental Beliefs
• LDS — Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants
• Jehovah's Witnesses — What Does the Bible Really Teach?