That year, the vaults of Riga Cathedral heard more than the organ. On 8 August 2010, Zbigņevs Stankevičs was consecrated a bishop there — an engineer who had once worked at the Riga Ship Repair Yard and, after theological studies in Rome, was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of Riga. The principal consecrator was Cardinal Jānis Pujats; two weeks later, on 21 August, Stankevičs took charge of the Archdiocese of Riga in St James’s Cathedral.
Stankevičs’s appointment followed the retirement of Cardinal Jānis Pujats from leadership of the Archdiocese of Riga at the age of 80. For Latvia’s Catholic Church, it was a visible generational handover: a Soviet-era church leader was succeeded by a priest with engineering training and academic formation in Rome.
Related events
- 1946On 8 August 1946, representatives of Latvia’s national partisans and the Free Fatherland Association submitted a memorandum to Kirhenšteins, Lācis and Kalnbērziņš, demanding the withdrawal of occupying troops.
- 1897On 8 August 1897, Latvian painter Ādams Alksnis came to Riga for what seemed a minor nose operation; blood poisoning followed, and his work was cut short soon afterward.
- 1982On 8 August 1982, a memorial room for Marta Skulme and Oto Skulme opened at Skulmes in Mālpils parish; later, a memorial space for actor Valentīns Skulme was added there.