Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Riga

The Archdiocese of Riga ( Latin: Archidioecesis Rigensis, Latvian Rigas arhidiecēze ) is an Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Latvia, based in Riga.

History

Middle Ages

Albrecht von Apel Dern, who was appointed in 1198 as a canon of Bremen Bishop of Livonia, built in 1201 in Riga a fixed bishopric and a cathedral chapter, for which he chose Premonstratensian. 1207 was the bishopric of fiefs, and in 1224 the bishop was raised to the imperial princes. 1255 Riga became an archbishopric, the bishoprics of Dorpat, Warmia, Kulm, Kurland, Osel - Wiek, Pomesania, Sambia and Virumaa were assumed as suffragan sees. The Diocese of Reval (now Tallinn) was placed under the Archbishopric of Lund.

Later the cathedral chapter and the bishopric were incorporated to the Teutonic Order. The diocese had a considerable territory of priests, in which the bishop or archbishop was also sovereign.

After 1563, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese was in the course of the Reformation Lutheran and continues to exist in this form.

The coat of arms of the historic Archbishopric of Riga was crook and staff sullied with clover cross diagonally crossed gold in red.

Start-up

On September 22, 1918, a new Roman Catholic diocese of Riga was built from the Archdiocese of Mogilev out, which was raised to an archbishopric in 1922. First bishop was the Baltic nobleman Count Eduard O'Rourke ( 1918-1920 ).

That's when under the management of the then larger diocese Kaunas province of Courland was the Bishopric of Riga slammed to adjust the ecclesiastical structures to the state borders of Latvia.

1937 was founded the bishopric of Liepāja in the southern and western territory, of the 1995, the southern territory was separated to the diocese of Jelgava. In the same year the diocese Rezekne - Aglona was created by separation of the eastern part of the Archdiocese. All three dioceses are suffragans of the archbishopric of Riga. Today's territory corresponds to the Latvian Vidzeme region or Central Livonia.

Today, the diocese covers an area of ​​23,587 km ². Since 1999 the number of Catholics is increasing, in 2004 it amounted to about 200,000 believers and approximately 15 percent of the population. Accordingly, the number of priests, religious and parishes rose.