Introduction

The Christian paradigm was one of the central paradigms in the early period of the history of written languages of the people in the Baltic region. The very beginnings of the written language are connected with the spread of Christianity, especially with the Reformation movement in the 16th century. The early written sources of Latvian are connected with the Reformation, the period when the idea of the translation of the Bible and use of vernaculars in worship spread over many parts of Europe and also found their place in Livonia. The earliest preserved books in Latvian are Catholic (1585) and Lutheran (1586) catechisms. Even the early short and fragmentary texts in Latvian from the first half of the 16th century were mostly connected with Christianity: they were prayers or other formulae used in Christian rituals.

Nevertheless, the history of Christianity in the Baltic area is longer and begins with the Christianization of the entirety of northern Europe in the 9th century. This was the period when the two branches of Christianity met on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea – the Western branch from Rome and the Eastern from Byzantium.