One fourth of Latvian residents consider themselves Orthodox

August 2014

According to the results of a poll conducted by the Research Center for Study of Public Opinion (SKDS), every fourth Latvian resident considers him or herself Orthodox (25.6%), reports Blagovest.info. In addition, the survey shows that another 22.6% consider themselves Catholics, 18.4% – Lutherans, 3.3% – Old Believers, 0.9% – Baptists, 0.3% – Seventh-Day Adventists, 0.1% – Jews.

Another 9.7 % of the respondents can call themselves believers, but they are not able to identify themselves with any denomination, and 16.4% call themselves non-believers.

As was earlier reported, in 2013, 1,506,056 people belonged to parishes and religious communities in Latvia, 110,438 fewer than in 2012 (according to the official report by the Policy development and religious Affairs department of the Industrial policy department of the Ministry of Justice of Latvia).

Last year the Lutheran communities numbered 712,891 believers, 2,000 fewer than the year before. This year for the first time over recent years reports of the Roman Catholic Church of Latvia are represented, and, according to them, 389,670 Catholics are registered on the territory of Latvia.

Orthodox communities and parishes in 2013 consisted of 370,000 people (and the same number in 2012), Old Believers’ communities – 2,355 people. At the same time, in its report the Pomorian Old Orthodox Church of Latvia indicated that 41,877 believers attended church services (in the previous year – 51,330 believers). In 2013, 7,026 people belonged to the Baptist communities.

According to the report of the Latvian Ministry of Justice, last year 3,943 Seventh-Day Adventists, 502 Methodists, 327 Jews, 343 Muslims, 145 Vaishnavas (Hare Krishna devotees), 4,736 Pentecostals, 3,020 followers of the “New Generation Church”, 3,187 Evangelicals, 161 Buddhists, 691 pagans (the Latvian pagan folk Dievturiba religion followers), 838 Mormons, 80 members of reformed communities, 721 Jehovah Witnesses, 305 members of the Ancient Oriental Apostolic Church, 340 members of the Autonomous Orthodox Church, 1,276 members of the New Apostolic communities, 409 members of the Salvation Army, 21 Hindus, 37 Vissarionites (after a modern Russian sect leader from the Krasnodar territory, under the pseudonym “Vissarion”, founder of the “Church of the Last Testament”) and others were registered.

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