On St. Saviour’s
St. Saviour’s Church stands proudly on the bank of the River Daugava in the old town of Rīga. It is an Anglican parish church that is part of the Church of England. It has a very appropriate address of Anglikāņu iela 2. It was founded on British soil, shipped to Latvia in 1857, and built with British red bricks. It has a fascinating history, from being made by British businessmen in Rīga for wayward British sailors, to being closed down as a church during the Soviet Russian occupation and becoming a student club, to reforming when Latvia regained independence as a church for an English-speaking congregation. Let’s look at its remarkable history and talk to its chaplain.
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In the early 19th century, British traders were active in the territory now known as Latvia, and British sailors were a common sight on the streets of Rīga.
On occasion, the sailors got into trouble and were incarcerated. Partly in response to this issue, British businessmen in 1806 established a British Poor Fund, whose purposes were threefold:
- firstly, to provide temporary relief for distressed British subjects;
- secondly, to endow a British clergyman to celebrate services according to the rites of the Church of England; and
- thirdly, to build a church and residence for the clergyman.
A congregation was founded in 1822. St. Saviour’s neo-Gothic church was designed by Johann Felsko, a Baltic German architect and urban planner who was Chief Architect of Rīga for 35 years and was instrumental in creating many famous buildings in Rīga. The church's foundation stone was laid in 1857. A shipload of earth was sent from Britain to build the church on British soil. Bricks were provided as well. The church was dedicated in July 1859 by the British Church of England Bishop Walter Trower as the Church of St. Saviour in Rīga, and the first regular church service was held in November 1859. Church use was halted during the Soviet occupation, and in 1973 it became the home of the Rīga Polytechnic Institute student club. During this period, the church building was renewed, and it became a cultural centre and venue for concerts, exhibitions, and dances. A Soviet-style disco!
After Latvia regained its independence in 1991, an English-speaking congregation was again formed at St. Saviour’s under the guidance of the American Lutheran Pastor Arden Haug. In 1995, the Rev’d Juris Cālītis, born in Latvia, assumed the responsibilities of pastor of St. Saviour’s. On his retirement in 2014, Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga, the former Lutheran Bishop in Great Britain, became the priest-in-charge. After she retired in 2019, Elīza Zikmane, Dean of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain, became the current chaplain in 2020. We will talk to Chaplain Eliza in this episode.
Today, the church is home to the congregation of St. Saviour’s. It has a service every Sunday at 11 am in English, and often has music concerts midweek. It has continued the outreach work from its origins. No longer with wayward British sailors. Not even drunk British hen and stag party revellers in Rīga, who disappeared at the start of the pandemic and never returned. Thank goodness! St. Saviour’s operates a soup kitchen for homeless people in its undercroft and supports a club for the elderly. I believe the soup kitchen serves soup, bread, porridge and fruit. Very Latvian!
Something that struck me is St. Saviour’s focus on inclusivity. I like that. In my work, I mentor my PR apprentices working at UK organisations to ensure their communications are as inclusive and accessible to their audiences as possible. I love the poem on St. Saviour’s website and will read it to you. It made me smile and laugh!:
- We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor.
- We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.
- We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or just growl quietly to yourself. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail.
- We don’t care if you’re more Christian than the Archbishop of Canterbury, or haven’t been in church since Christmas 10 years ago.
- We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome basketball mums, hockey dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted.
- We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organised religion” (we’ve been there too). If you blew all your offering money at the casino, you’re welcome here.
- We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell; and those who are here because granny is visiting and wanted to go to church. We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both.
- We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in the Old Town and wound up here by mistake. We welcome pilgrims, tourists, seekers and doubters, and you!
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I met Chaplain Eliza at St. Saviour’s. I wanted to learn more about the church's rich history, its present congregation and activities, and meet Grācija, the church cat!
Me: This is an old church being renovated at the moment and as an old church it must have lots of stories. Can you tell us some of the stories about this church, things that you found amazing, enlightening or interesting?
Eliza: This church has a very interesting history and has gone through different Latvian history periods. It was built by British people, for a very diverse British community, and survived for many years. And then they experienced the wars, the First World War, when it was also used for German worship. The community grew during the independence of Latvia. And then, during the Second World War, the British left this country. And after that, this place was used as a disco. Many people still remember that. It's such a place where they met their first love and had a kiss and also got drunk. But that ended with independence and the building went back to a church for worship. As you mentioned, we are going through restoration works at the moment, and it will be even more beautiful than it is now. One of the stories I would like to highlight is that during the period when this was not used as a church, pieces of furniture, like the altar, pulpit, and lectern, were given to other churches to preserve them. And in recent years, we got them back. Nice homecoming and gathering of those objects. And it is a good feeling to have this history behind us with all those layers of the British community, with the creative community being here, with the international community as we are now, including Latvians and Russians who live in this country, that we could look towards the future with that richness, with thanks, and really build on that. And because this church, as you also saw and mentioned, it's in the process of being renovated, being built on the river. So we see ships coming in and people also come from cruise ships and visitors.
Me: It would only be through historical records, but when the church was founded, Riga was a very different place with lots of British people, like sailors. I was going to say that before the pandemic there were lots of British here as well just coming for a weekend. But Riga was a very different place 200 years ago. What can you tell us about Riga at that time and its British connections and this church, St. Saviour’s?
Eliza: I’m not so old and was not present at that time! But yes, Riga was a different place and obviously British people started coming to Riga and other ports of the Russian Empire after Peter the Great opened his country to Western influence and lots of trade was done. And the British people came here, and you mentioned sailors, and quite a few of them got into trouble and as they do in foreign countries. So the British community established the British Poor Fund in 1806 and one of the objectives was to help the poor who needed help, whether they were imprisoned or ill or they needed some sort of assistance. And also to build the church. Although there were many Scots and Presbyterians and Methodists, but altogether they decided to have a Church of England church. And so it's always been ecumenical. And throughout the ages, we still maintain the ethos of being open to people from many different church traditions. We welcome everybody. So that was the period when Riga was changing. And as we saw downstairs, old masonry, there were buildings in this place before the church. That was the fortification of Riga, and that was demolished to open the city up to the river to trade, to enable the city to grow. And the British bought the land, and we're looking forward to building a church. It was the mid-19th century, but it had to be delayed for five years. There was a war in Crimea and sanctions. But they could resume five years later the building works, and this place was consecrated in 1859. We can still see a few features from that period. Some of the stained glass windows - just a few fragments - and also paintings covered the wall. Only a few fragments remain at the moment, and maybe we'll restore them in due course, who knows? So that is a story about that period when this church served not only the British but also other nationalities.
Me: And you, Chaplain Eliza, have been active, I believe, 30 years in the church, Lutheran Church in UK for many years, Church of England more recently. And I know you were born in Latvia. Why did you come back to Latvia and St. Saviour”s particularly?
Eliza: As you said, I've spent a number of years in England serving Latvia in an international community in London, but also Ireland and in the Channel Islands. For me, it was time to come back because of family reasons, but also I think the world is changing, and Britain at that time as well, with Brexit and all sorts of things going on. But I thought it would be nice to return to Latvia. And in Latvia, women who are in ministry do not have many opportunities. This vacancy came up, and I applied. I know my predecessors, Juris, who was my university professor, and Bishop Jāna, with whom we shared a church in London. And so, therefore, it was coming to a place where I knew people. And the experience I had before was similar because Lutherans are a tiny minority in England. And Anglicans here, a tiny minority. We have diversity of worship and different styles, and different music we use. Because our community is very diverse. Not many of them are Anglicans, but some of them are. People come from different parts of the world and from different walks of life. So therefore, it is quite a transient congregation, which is sometimes difficult, investing in people when we know that they would go on to somewhere else. But at the same time, it's exciting. You never know who will turn up. And if you come as a member of the congregation, you do not know whom you will meet, from which part of the world. And we always have time for fellowship after the service of teas and coffees, where people can mingle and say hello to each other, where you're from, where you're staying.
Me: My last question has to be about someone who's been following us around a little bit here, the church cat. I think her name's Grācija. How long has Grācija been here? The church cat seems to own the place! Tell me more.
Eliza: I sometimes say that I'm just an assistant to Grācija. She's the boss. And she's been here for a number of years, definitely before my time. But the main reason, as with other places, churches or cathedrals, which have cats, was to keep mice at bay. So she still does that job. She catches mice because, in an old town, we need a cat who resides here. But she does other jobs too. She's very much into public relations. People always comment, when they post a YouTube video of their activities just a few people watch it. And when a video of Grācija appears on Facebook, then everybody responds. Because she is a very friendly cat she takes part in church activities, and comes to services, concerts, and staff meetings. During Covid she did Zoom! Usually, when she comes to big events, she chooses somebody to sit on and that person is allowed not to stand up during the service because they have the duty to be with her. But also during COVID it was really touching to see people coming in to see the cat when people could not socialise and had to keep distance. An especially touching moment was when a family of Iranian refugees came in, and they could not speak. Their English was very basic. But they saw the cat. And they could stroke the cat. And that really made them welcome and made the connection with something to remind them of home. So therefore, Grācija is a very valuable member of our staff, and she teaches us how to be yourself, how to be loved and how to accept love. She likes people coming to her to show their love to her. She's not afraid. She's not aggressive, and she does not run away. I think that's a lesson we could learn in the church. How to be fully human and how to accept love, how to be loved. And love as well, but also how to be loved in this environment.
Me: Thank you very much indeed.
At the end of the interview with Chaplain Eliza, my son was found fast asleep, cuddled up next to Grācija!
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In conclusion. St. Saviour’s, centrally located in Riga old town, is well worth visiting. Whether attending a Sunday service, listening to a mid-week concert or learning more about this magnificent church and its diverse congregation - past and present. Or even to find the church cat!