Latvian Orthodox Church

The Latvian Orthodox Church (Latvian: Latvijas Pareizticīgā Baznīca, Russian: Латвийская Православная Церковь) is a semi-autonomous Eastern Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow. The head of the church carries the title of Metropolitan of Riga and all Latvia; this position has been occupied since 1990 by Metropolitan Alexander Kudryashov (Aleksandrs Kudrjašovs).

History

Orthodoxy was planted in Latvia in the 11th century, when it became a mission field of the diocese of Polatsk. But the country remained mostly pagan until it was conquered in the 13th century by German crusaders - the Teutonic Order, who imposed Catholicism. Orthodox presence continued in the form of churches for Russian merchants and others, but these were small communities among a majority of Catholics before 1525 and Lutherans afterward. After Latvia was annexed to the Russian Empire in the 18th century (most of Latvia, a result of the Great Northern War by the Treaty of Nystad, the Latgale region after the First Partition of Poland in 1772), Russian and Orthodox presence increased substantially, but the Orthodox Church remained foreign to the Latvians. The Latvian Orthodox Church as a body including ethnic Latvians as well as Russians dates back to the 1840s, when native Latvians (who were at that time subjects of the Russian Empire) petitioned the Czar to be allowed to conduct services in their native tongue. The Orthodox Church enjoyed some success in its missions among the Latvians due to its use of the Latvian language. In the 1880s Orthodox Nativity Cathedral was built in Riga. However, it was always regarded suspiciously by the Lutheran Germanic nobles of the area; conversely the predominantly German character of the Lutheran Church in Latvia was a factor in the movement of some 40,000 Latvians from the Lutheran to the Orthodox Church. When religious freedom was proclaimed in 1905, about 12,000 Latvians moved in the opposite direction, from Orthodoxy to Lutheranism; in most cases this seems to have occurred because of mixed marriages and the difficulties of maintaining a religiously divided family.

During World War I, the property of the Orthodox Church in Latvia was confiscated by occupying German forces, and in the early years of independent Latvia the government was not eager to recognize the church, suspecting it of being a hotbed of czarism. In this difficult—one might say desperate—situation, Jānis (Pommers), a native Latvian, was appointed Archbishop of Riga in 1921. He succeeded in winning recognition from the government by 1926 and, against much opposition from leftists and others, in stabilizing the situation of the church. While opposing the Bolsheviks, he maintained the Latvian Orthodox Church within the Moscow Patriarchate. In 1934, he was brutally assassinated by Soviet agents. In the following year, the Latvian Orthodox Church became autocephalous under the auspices of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The subsequent five years were good years for the Latvian Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Augustin (Pētersons); they were ended abruptly by the Soviet annexation of Latvia in 1940, which was followed by German Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944, and a second Soviet annexation lasting from 1944 to 1991. The church suffered oppression during this period, as did organized religion throughout the Soviet Union, which was partly mitigated from 1943 to 1958 and in the last years of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev.

In modern Latvia, there are 350,000 Orthodox Church members. A vast majority of them are ethnic Russians and other immigrants living in Latvia.

Popular culture

The Church plays a major role in "The Conversion" episode of the popular television sitcom Seinfeld, in which the character George Costanza converts to Latvian Orthodoxy in order to have his ex-girlfriend's Latvian Orthodox parents allow a relationship between the two. However, she leaves on a trip to Latvia after he converts. The writer of the episode, Bruce Kirschbaum, revealed later that he was unaware that the religion actually existed while writing the episode. His original intention was to have a fictitious religion. Indeed, while appearing Eastern Orthodox to the casual observer, much of the attire and ritual is actually more western in style. Furthermore, the word "kavorca," which in the episode was used to describe Kramer's attractiveness as "the lure of the animal," is not a real Latvian word. Nevertheless, Kirschbaum received many letters from the church thanking him for bringing attention to the religion.

See also

• Estonian Orthodox Church

External links

• Official Latvian Orthodox Church Website (Russian & Latvian Only)
• Former Official Website (English unavailable as of June 9, 2006)