Dr. Serhii Shumylo
Latvia and Constantinople: spiritual and historical ties. On the history of the Latvian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
For the Latvian Church, historically and canonically, the Mother Church for many centuries (since the 12th century) has been the Patriarchate of Constantinople, not Moscow. Historically, it was a natural development for the Latvian Church that, after the collapse of the Russian Empire and Latvia’s attainment of state independence in the early 20th century, it embarked on a path of reviving its own ecclesiastical identity and independence. This process was finally completed canonically after the restoration of unity with the Mother Church of Constantinople and the granting of a tomos of ecclesiastical autonomy to the Latvian Orthodox Church in 1936. In our time, the natural process of further revival and development of the Latvian Orthodox Church is possible through the restoration of canonical autonomous status based on the tomos of the Patriarchate of Constantinople dated February 4, 1936, and the restoration of the legitimate ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Mother Church of Constantinople, which existed here before the Soviet occupation of the country in 1940 and 1944, and which was expelled and destroyed in Latvia by the Soviet occupation regime through brutal repression.
Ολόκληρο το άρθρο στη συνέχεια.