John of Riga

Saint John of Riga, hieromartyr (Jānis Pommers, in Russian Ivan Andreyevich Pommer), was the first Latvian archbishop of the Latvian Orthodox Church, at its head from 1921 until his murder in 1934. He is regarded as the first and, to this day, the only Latvian Orthodox saint, a martyr of the twentieth century.

Beginnings

He was born on 6 (18) January 1876 in the region of Livonia, in a family of Latvian peasants. His forebears, beginning with his great-⁠grandfather, were among the first Latvians to turn to Orthodoxy. As a child he worked the land. He graduated from the church school in Riga (1891), the Riga seminary (1897) and the Kiev Theological Academy with the title of candidate in theology (1904), and was counted among the most learned men of his time.

He served as a psalm-⁠reader at Lazdona and then at the Holy Trinity cathedral in Libau (today Liepāja). In 1903, on the advice of Father John of Kronstadt, he received the monastic habit. From 1904, as a hieromonk, he taught Holy Scripture at the seminary of Chernigov. From 1906 he was inspector at the seminary of Vologda, and from 1907 rector of the seminary of Vilna, with the rank of archimandrite, and abbot of the Holy Trinity monastery in Vilna.

The bishop

On 11 February 1912 he was consecrated bishop of Slutsk, vicar of the Minsk eparchy. From 1913 he was bishop of Taganrog and the Azov region, vicar of the Ekaterinoslav eparchy, from 1917 bishop of Staritsa, and in 1918 bishop of Penza and Saransk. In October 1918 he was sentenced to death by the Bolsheviks but pardoned as a foreign subject.

Having come to Latvia, he became archbishop of Riga and all Latvia, at the head of the Latvian Orthodox Church, from 1921. The Church gained state recognition in 1926. The archbishop also took part in political life: he was elected to the Saeima in 1925 on the list of the Party of the Orthodox, re-⁠elected in 1928 and 1931, and sat as a deputy until 1934. The Left feared he was a monarchist, while the Russian monarchists feared he was a Latvian nationalist.

Martyrdom and veneration

On 29 September (12 October) 1934 he was murdered with cruelty at the archbishop's summer residence near Riga. The Russian Church Outside Russia placed him among the saints in 1981, and the Russian Church in 2001. On 17 July 2003 his incorrupt relics were found at the Pokrov cemetery in Riga. The Order of the Holy Martyr Archbishop John of Riga and Latvia, of the Latvian Orthodox Church, is named for him.

His memory is kept on 29 September, by the Julian calendar.