Riga Cathedral (latvian: Rīgas Doms), officially the Cathedral of St. Mary's in Riga (latvian: Rīgas Svētās Marijas katedrāle), is the Lutheran Cathedral in Riga, the capital of the EU member state Latvia.
The Gothic church is one of the city's most prominent attractions and is the largest church in the Baltic States.
Riga Cathedral was built at the behest of Albert of Buxthoeven, the first Bishop of Riga. According to a document dated July 25, 1211, the authenticity of which is disputed, he laid the foundation stone for a monastery and an adjoining church on that same day.
The church replaced the first cathedral of Riga, a wooden structure within the Riga city walls, which was destroyed by fire in 1215. No consecration date has been handed down; in any case, the cathedral was sufficiently completed in 1226 to hold a synod.
After 1563, the cathedral served the (German-speaking) Evangelical Lutheran community. In 1923, the Latvian state confirmed the ownership of the cathedral to the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, which was established in 1920/1922. From 1959 to 1962, the cathedral served as a concert hall, the altar was removed and the rows of seats were aligned towards the organ. (Text: Wikipedia)
In 1882/1883, the organ-building workshop Walcker from Ludwigsburg built the current organ with mechanical key action, 6,718 pipes and 116 registers on four manuals and pedal (op. 413).
It was inaugurated on January 31, 1884 and was the largest in the world at the time. The magnificent early Baroque façade of the previous instrument was retained, with the central section, crowned by three turrets, and the back positive, having been completed by Jakob Raab of Lübeck in 1601.
In 1733, Andreas Contius added two pedal towers on the left and right, which he connected to the Raab organ case via concave pipe fields. This makes the instrument the oldest preserved organ case in the Baltic States. In 1829, 52 stops were installed behind it.
In 1962, Hermann Eule Orgelbau Bautzen thoroughly overhauled the organ and replaced pipes lost during the Second World War. For its 100th anniversary, the Walcker organ was restored by the Dutch organ-building company Flentrop in 1983/1984.
