Other forms: canonizations
Canonization is the official act by which the Roman Catholic Church or other Christian denomination declares a person to be a saint. It's only after the person has died that canonization can occur.
One way to define canonization is "officially placing in the canon of saints," from the Latin canon, "church rule or calendar of saints." In the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, only the Pope can complete a person's canonization, adding the new name to the church's list of saints. But the process has many steps and can take years: The well-known saint Joan of Arc died in 1431, but her canonization wasn't official until 1920.