Jouko Talonen Professor (emeritus), Doctor of Τheology University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology (Ulrikankuja 6 B 41, Vantaa, Suomi, 01400)
jouko.talonen@helsinki.fi
Talonen J. Status and Development of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Latvia from 1918 to 2018. An Outline, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2023, vol. 12, pp. 232–276.
doi: 10.24412/2308-0698-2023-12-232-276
Language: Russian
The history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (ELCL) from 1918 to 2018 is analysed. During the first period of independence (1918– 1940), the ELCL was the church of the majority of the population (55–57%). Quite positive was the period of the Kārlis Ulmanis’s rule. In Soviet Latvia in 1940–1941 and 1944–1987, the church was a persecuted and marginalized faith community. Efforts of Gustavs Turs (1890–1973), the «Red Archbishop», didn’t prevent the church decline. In 1987 the church had only 25,000 active members (about 1% of the population of the Soviet Republic). However, the straightforward estimation of the statistics if troublesome.
In the last years of communism, the church received new operational freedoms from the end of the 1980s onward. After Latvia became independent, the church’s activities continued to develop. However, there was no return to the National Church. However, the ELCL’s forms of work became more and more versatile starting in the 1980s. The Church’s theological profile has been conservative. This has been seen, among other things, in its solid relationship with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in America, and in the fact that the church has stopped ordaining women.
Key words: Eucharist, liturgy, reform, Bible, righteousness, Trinity
URL: //rcs-almanac.ru/en/en-talonen-2023/
