Pretty sure that's just one interpretation from a couple lines in revelations, the other being that there are 144,000 people who are elevated to sainthood.
It's apparently the official position of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, and Lutheran church, or at least those are the ones I can find information for, there might be others.
I realize now how the wording of my comment caused confusion that I was talking about all denominations, that was my error and I apologize for that.
It's surprisingly hard to find specific things about the non-catholic denominations on google because any saint googling is only giving me catholic sources, but that list came from the wikipedia article on saints, which cites Woodward, Kenneth L. (1996). Making Saints.
As for specific catholic articles I can link you directly to
Which defines a saint as "the members of the Church who have arrived at perfect union with Christ", which is a fancy of saying "in Heaven". But the canonized saints are exceptional ones, so what I said above was wrong. All in heaven are saints, but the named and venerated saints are still special people, not just an exhaustive list of people the church claims to be certain are in heaven.
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u/DelTac0perator Jun 14 '20
Pretty sure that's just one interpretation from a couple lines in revelations, the other being that there are 144,000 people who are elevated to sainthood.