Population by religion

The statistics of population by religion for the whole Russia Empire were gathered by the Census of 1897. I have the statistical data from this Census for Riga city. /KV, vol.3/

Riga population by religions in 1897

Religion	Number of believers	Percentage
*Ev.-Lutherans*	180 783	64.06
*Greek Orthodox*	39 851	14.12
*Catholics*	26 820	9.50
*Jews*	22 115	7.84
*Old-believers*	9 009	3.19
*Reformats*	1 384	0.49
*Baptists*	849	0.30
*Muslims*	465	0.16
*Anglikans*	180	0.06
*Other Christians*	114	0.04
*Other*	60	0.02
Total	282 230	100

The numbers of believers of various confessions in 1920 were published in /Skujenieks/.

Latvia population by religious confession in 1920:

Religion	Riga	Vidzeme	Kurzeme	Zemgale	Latgale	Latvija
Protestants	125 439	363 021	231 697	163 199	31 053	914 409
Catholics	16 422	3 956	22 960	39 182	292 707	375 227
Orthodox	12 974	35 387	5 385	5 470	79 587	138 803
Old-believers	3 647	483	308	7 467	61 405	73 310
Moses faith	24 887	4 223	14 368	5 823	30 325	79 626
Others	1 768	1 810	7 735	1 170	2 273	14 756
Total:	185 137	408 880	282 453	222 311	497 350	1 596 131

In the book the statistics of the popularity of various religions among the people of different ethnicities were also available. The data for Latvians are the following:

Latvians by their religion in 1920

Religion	Riga	Vidzeme	Kurzeme	Zemgale	Latgale	Latvija
Protestants	94 262	351 539	214 514	157 574	28 122	846 011
Catholics	2 592	1 975	10 255	14 711	229 261	258 794
Orthodox	4 109	30 048	2 677	880	4 870	42 584
Others	831	1 478	7 112	846	1 640	12 007
Total:	101 894	385 040	234 558	174 011	263 893	1 159 396

The book also informs that totally 933 ethnic Latvians were registered as the Old-Believers and 35 as belonging to Moses faith (Judaism), and some Muslims and Buddhists were among Latvians.

Similar statistics were gathered for Russians.

Russians by their religion in 1920

Religion	Latvija
Catholics	1 880
Orthodox	32 961
Old-believers	55 984
Others	652
Total:	91 477

As for other ethnicities, then almost all Germans (96.1%) were Lutherans and almost all Jews (99.8%) belonged to the Moses faith (Judaism). Poles (98.5%) and Lithuanians (97.1%) were Catholics.

The information on the number of believers in 1935 by their confession was taken from Latvija skaitļos 1938.

Latvia population by religious confession in 1935:

Religion	Riga	Vidzeme	Kurzeme	Zemgale	Latgale	Latvija
Protestants	249 333	349 890	246 784	205 438	43 342	1 094 787
Catholics	44 717	16 467	24 913	64 704	326 162	476 963
Orthodox	33 728	34 321	6 994	8 644	90 702	174 389
Old-believers	11 525	2 808	1 358	12 922	78 582	107 195
Moses faith	43 558	2 460	12 002	7 382	28 004	93 406
Others	2 202	301	608	279	372	3 762
Total:	385 063	406 247	292 659	299 369	567 164	1 959 502

More detailed information about religious confessions of various ethnicities is available for 1938.

The religion of Latvia inhabitants by ethnicity in 1938

Religion	*Latvians*	*Russians*	*Jews*	*Germans*	*Poles*	*Belorus.*	*Lithuan.*	*Estonians*	*Others*
Lutherans	1,005,207	607	49	58,919	436	92	511	5,699	4,051
Catholics	388,118	1,996	10	1,251	47,494	14,164	21,952	71	1,790
Orthodox	57,600	103,438	26	587	764	8,520	151	1,139	2,109
Old-Believers	2,786	99,810	2	12	149	4,037	69	2	305
Moses faith	170	11	93,154	26	18	3	5	1	15
Others	17,823	550	191	1.301	62	37	212	95	622
Unknown	908	87	47	48	26	14	13	7	54

.It is rather interesting that in 1938 almost 250 inhabitants of non-Jewish ethnicity had joined Judaism and about 250 ethnic Jews had left Judaism for other religions.