It has an area of 64,000 sq. km. with a population of 1,950,502 inhabitants, of whom 476,963 are Catholics; it comprises 126 parishes and 166 churches; it has 1 seminary (Annuario Pontificio 1952, p. 338).
On the present devastated state of the archdiocese V. LATVIA.
Founded in 1201 by Bishop Albert of Livonia, it was immediately established as a bishopric and in 1255 as an archbishopric; after its decline in 1522 due to the conversion to Protestantism, it was re-established on 22 Sept. 1918, separated from the archdiocese of Mohilev. By decree of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation of 25 Oct. 1923 it was erected as an archbishopric and Pope Pius XI with the apostolic constitution Plurimum sane of 8 May 1937 raised it to metropolitan status, assigning as its suffragan the diocese of Liepaja, carved out of the archdiocese of Riga by the apostolic constitution Letternam animarum salus of 8 May 1937, and elevating the cathedral to the dignity of a metropolitan see.
Riga is the seat of the Latvian University (Latvijas Universitāte).
Converging in concord are salvation and justice. Violence only accumulates hatreds and ruins; “only a progressive and prudent, courageous and nature-consonant evolution, enlightened and guided by the holy Christian norms of justice and equity, can lead to the fulfillment of the honest desires and needs of the worker” (AAS, 35 [1943], pp. 174-75).