Latvia

Despite being a captive nation under the rule of the officially atheistic Soviet regime for nearly half of the 20th century, the northern European Baltic country of Latvia (population 2.2 million) has historically been a multiconfessional and largely Christian nation. Since the 16th century, the regions that comprise modern Latvia were largely under Lutheran religious influence. Lutheranism, however, cannot be considered a national church in Latvia, as the faith, like Catholicism beginning in the 13th century, was introduced by the German minority, who dominated the region from the late Middle Ages to the early decades of the past century. Polish influence also played a significant role in Latvia's religious history; as a result of Polish clerical efforts, much of eastern Latvia (Latgale) today is Roman Catholic.

Perhaps the most significant force shaping religious life in Latvia today is the experience of Soviet rule. For half a century, religious life in Latvia was harshly suppressed by the Soviet regime, which authorized the arrest, exile, and outright murder of many priests and pastors. During World War II, many clerics, including more than half of Latvia's pastors, fled the Baltic states to continue their religious mission abroad. Partly as a result of the Soviet regime's harsh policies, church membership declined in the Baltic states. Despite a brief surge in popular interest in religion that coincided with Latvia's realization of independence in the early 1990s, most Latvians today demonstrate little interest in organized religion.

The trend toward secularization among the population has had the greatest impact on the once dominant Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (ELCL): Its population today is about 20%, down from the 55% who professed Lutheranism in the 1930s. The difficulties faced by the ELCL have been exacerbated by fragmentation within the church. In recent years, several congregations have split off from the main church, including eight congregations of the Augsburg Confession, whose members criticize the ELCL for what it claims is the latter's equivocal attitude toward the Holy Scripture.

Catholicism, benefiting from institutional contacts abroad and being less compromised than the Lutheran Church during the period of Soviet rule, appears to have better weathered the communist experience. Today, an estimated 22% of the Latvian population belong to the Catholic Church, whose popular allegiance now challenges (if not surpasses) that of the Lutheran Church.

After Lutheranism and Catholicism, the next largest religious confession in Latvia is Orthodoxy, the principal faith of the country's nearly 800,000 Russian speakers. While the ancestors of some of Latvia's Russians first settled in the Baltic provinces when the region was under tsarist rule beginning in the 18th century, the Russification of Latvia (and neighboring Estonia) sharply accelerated during the Soviet era. Since most Russian speakers are concentrated in the cities, this makes Orthodoxy the main religion of Latvia's urban population, while Catholicism is the principal faith of the rural populations of the east.

Jews once constituted the fourth major religious group in Latvia (there were 93,479 Jews residing in Latvia according to the 1935 census). Most, however, were killed in the Holocaust of the 1940s; thus, only a few hundred Jews remain in the country today. Other sizable religious minorities include Old Believers, Baptists, Pentecostals, Seventh-Day Adventists, Muslims, and Mormons. While the Latvian constitution provides for freedom and of religion and the state generally respects religious practices, some minority religious groups—in particular newer, “nontraditional” religious groups—have occasionally faced discrimination.

...