Mūsu Luters

Martin Luther’s contribution to the Latvian people is priceless. One of the great contributions of Luther and the Reformation to the nations was the Bible, the word of God and its everyday derivatives – the Catechism and the hymn book – in the vernacular. Together, these texts form a peculiar canon of Latvian early Christian culture. They were translated into Latvian by German pastors for the needs of the first Latvian congregations, creating also on the way the Latvian alphabet and writing. These texts de facto contributed to the creation of the Latvian nation itself. The former non-Germans – Semigallians, Curs, Selonians and Livlandians – emerged from the anonymity of history as a cultural nation – the Latvians, who had the basic texts of the Christian faith in their native language. With them, the Latvians entered the circle of European cultural nations. Therefore, Latvians, along with Germans, can rightly say about the reformer: our Luther!