Alternate titles: Debestēvs; Deivas; Dievas

Dievs, also called Debestēvs (Latvian), Lithuanian Dievas, Old Prussian Deivas,  in Baltic religion, the sky god. Dievs and Laima, the goddess of human fate, determine human destiny and world order. Dievs is a wooer of Saule, the sun. As pictured by the pre-Christian Balts, he is an Iron Age Baltic king who lives on a farmstead in the sky. Wearing a silver gown, pendants, and a sword, he occasionally rides down to earth, on horseback or in a horse-drawn chariot, to watch over farmers and their crops.


In name, Dievs is cognate with the Vedic Dyaus-Pitṛ, the Latin Dies-piter (Jupiter), and the Greek Zeus, denoting originally the bright, daylight sky.

The word dievs was also used by the ancient Balts to denote god in general and in modern usage refers to the Christian God.

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