Measuring Religious Belonging in Latvia: Controversies and Debates
Measuring Religious Belonging in Latvia: Controversies and Debates

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to introduce the recent controversies and debates on measurement of religious belonging in Latvia, by providing historical insight, briefly examining legal aspects of data acquisition today and discussing the issue of sociological research into religious identity, religiousness and formal belonging. As religion is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, various approaches have also been used in Latvia for measuring religious belonging and religiousness. Talking about religion, most frequently a person’s religious affiliation is the subject of research; however, due to the different ways the questions are framed, different responses can be received from respondents: the answers to open-ended questions will differ from closed-ended questions. The terminology which is used in the formulation of questions is also important. Furthermore, it is also influenced by socio-political aspects. The measurement of religious belonging has been undertaken with various political goals in different historical periods in Latvia, e.g., tsarist Russia was interested in an increasing number of Orthodox believers, while the Soviet authorities tried to achieve decrease in the number of believers. Today official religious statistics published by the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia is obtained from the Office of Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Justice. However, the data only concerns religious organizations, not individual members. Currently the major controversy concerns whether data on individuals’ religious affiliation should or should not be collected in surveys conducted by the Central Statistical Bureau. The issue is seen as potentially sensitive, similarly to ethnic belonging. On the other hand, it must be noted that in Latvia, there are no religious conflicts, and leaders of major religious denominations maintain positive relationships, hence, there are a few risks that revealing religious denomination could cause any potential harm to the respondent.

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