It is very moving for me to be able to stand here in this venerable place of worship today alongside my Latvian counterpart and friend Egils Levits. St Peter’s Church is a symbol of Riga, deeply rooted in the history of this unique city. Its stones could tell of the turbulent times this place has seen, of emergence and decline, sorrow and hope. A fate shared by Riga and the entire country.

The centuries-old history of the German congregation ended in 1939 as a result of the criminal pact with which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany took away the freedom and independence of the countries and peoples lying between them. What Molotov and Ribbentrop agreed fills us Germans with shame and sorrow to this day. We bear responsibility for the darkness and suffering that fell over this part of Europe.

The pact also put an end to the centuries-long presence of the Baltic Germans. We can be profoundly grateful that today, enfolded together in the St Peter’s Church Foundation, the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church and its independent German congregation are bringing a fresh lease of life to this place.

St Peter’s Church is once again to be a place of encounters, a place where Latvia’s reconciled diversity comes to life as part of our common Europe. The special interconnectedness of our common cultural and spiritual roots is very evident here. I am grateful to the Saeima, the Latvian parliament, for having set forth in the recently adopted law on ownership the wide range of functions this unique church is to fulfil. This church is now once again a sacred space, and at the same time it remains clear that church is also fellowship, it is reflection, remembrance and future, church is living culture.

This church was the cradle of the Reformation in the eastern part of Europe in 1522. At that time, Riga was one of the first cities beyond Wittenberg and the heart of Luther’s Reformation in central Germany to which the movement spread. On our way here today, we walked across Reformation Square, which my predecessor Joachim Gauck and his Latvian counterpart Raimonds Vējonis named in 2017. Today, a little over five years later, we now have the privilege to celebrate this special service in St Peter’s.

Wherever it spread, the Reformation brought change, including here in Riga. The concept of individual freedom, the freedom of a Christian, concentration on the Word – all this also changed the Baltic Germans’ and Latvians’ perception of their relationship with each other and of their shared, turbulent history.

Renowned clerics who worked as pastors not only in Riga played a part in this development. For example, it was the Luther Bible that sparked the famous Pastor Johann Ernst Glück, originally from Saxony-Anhalt, to translate the Bible from its original languages into Latvian. Working in what was then Marienburg, now Alūksne, he thereby made a crucial contribution to the development of written Latvian. Many Protestant Pastors refocused on the Latvian language and Latvian traditions. Let me mention just Pastor August Bielenstein, who as an ethnographer of Latvian culture rendered lasting service to this country.

I hope that Germans and Balts can today rediscover this chapter of their shared history, and that we can take to heart the lessons of our history when it comes to shaping the future in our united Europe.

And I wish the congregation of St Peter’s, who are the heart of the life of this church, now flourishing anew, much energy and every blessing for this wonderful endeavour.

Thank you. Paldies.