Latvia–Lithuania relations Latvia–Lithuania relations Latvian–Lithuanian relations are bilateral international relations between Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia has an embassy in Vilnius, and Lithuania has an embassy in Riga. The ambassador to Lithuania is Hardijs Baumanis, the ambassador to Latvia is Antanas Vinkus. Both states share a long common history: Both Latvians and Lithuanians belong to the family of Baltic peoples, speakers of the Baltic languages. The territory of Latvia and Lithuania were together part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1561 and 1772 (with a brief period of Swedish rule in what is now Latvia in between). Between
Religion in Latvia with 17.3%. Latvia was one of the last regions in Europe to be Christianized. The inhabitants of the region that is now Latvia once practiced Finnic paganism and Baltic mythology, but this practice gradually diminished through the course of the centuries. In the 12th to 13th centuries Latvia first fell under the influence of the Catholic Church, as the Christian kings of Denmark, Sweden and the North German Livonian and Teutonic military orders fought for influence in the region in what later became known as the Northern Crusades. Parts of Eastern Latvia (notably the Koknese and Jersika principalities) shortly came