Aizpute Baptist Church

Kuldīgas iela 17, Aizpute, Dienvidkurzemes novads

+371 26336783

The Aizpute Baptist Congregation was founded in 1869. Its first pastor, who later became the bishop of the Latvian Baptist Union, was Ādams Gertners, who was imprisoned several times in Aizpute and also in Kuldīga.

The first church building was constructed in 1884. However, just eight years later, in 1892, under the pretext that the Baptist church was too close to the Orthodox church, the Tsarist administration ordered it to be demolished. In 1893, the congregation decided to purchase a plot of land at 17 Kuldīgas Street for 750 rubles, and within the same year, the second church building was erected.

This church served the congregation until March 21, 1937, when it was destroyed in a fire on Palm Sunday evening. It was decided to raise funds for the construction of a new church. The congregation built its third church in just 11 months, based on a design by the Baltic German architect Alexander Schmeling. The new church was consecrated on Christmas 1939.

The congregation never ceased its activities during either World War I or World War II. From 1949 to 1990, the church also served as a place of worship for the Aizpute Seventh-day Adventist Congregation, whose original premises had been confiscated by the Soviet authorities.

Notably, in this very building, composer Pēteris Vasks was born and spent his childhood in the family of the Baptist pastor Arvīds Vasks.