St. Saviour's

St. Saviour's in the Anglican church in Rīga -- to my knowledge, the only Anglican church in Latvia. The Baltics were never particularly settled by the English, though there was trade as early as the seventeenth century. And that was largely the reason for St. Saviour's. English sailors needed saving from themselves, or more specifically, from the gambling, drinking, and whoring that was expected of them in a foreign port. Anglican ministers set up a parish, and that's why Rīga has an Anglican church, right on the Daugava River. All the better to get the sailors before they got into town, I bet. Here it is from the street:

I went to Easter service there, which was of course conducted in English. The congregation was a nice Commonwealth mix: Canadians, Indians, English-speaking Latvians, and of course some Americans including yours truly. The service was wonderful, in large part because it was in English. Even though I know the liturgical script, as it were, being able to follow and take part in the script is awfully nice when you've been living for the most part not hearing your own language a lot. And as might be expected in a community that is heavily expatriate, the spirit of the place was very welcoming and warm. Here's the coffee hour, with (naturally) cake and coffee. This is Latvia, after all.

I was impressed to learn that, on a generally small budget and few resources, St. Saviour's manages a soup kitchen, a weekday concert series, and various adult education courses. The music was very good. Chris Walsh, an American who is living in Latvia, chanted beautifully; Justine Koontz, another Fulbright choral scholar, attends regularly; and the organist and musicians from Rīga Technical University played very well. All technical university students should be so musically inclined. Then again, this is Latvia.

The rector, the Right Reverend Jana Jeruma Grinberga, gave a fine sermon, which is saying something. There aren't that many spins one can give the Easter story because it's so overfamiliar. But walking all of us through Holy Week, as she did, and exploring why all of it matters was a good reminder that ritual is important and meaningful, and therefore it should also be beautifully done. St. Saviour's takes this to heart. If you're in Rīga, do stop in.

There is another sort of peculiar (well, to me) Latvian Easter tradition. Big wooden swings are set up in various places around town. They look rather like wooden, oversized versions of the swing sets that you had in your backyard growing up. The tradition is to swing in the swing, preferably accompanied by Latvia folk music. I asked my adult English students about this. What's up with the swing? "Tradition," they said, which didn't exactly answer my question, but there you have it.