Riga Cathedral on Dome Square

Riga Cathedral, or Rigas Doms, is the largest and oldest church in Latvia. It sits on Dome Square (Doma laukums), the big open square at the heart of the Old Town. The name comes from the Latin 'Domus Dei', meaning 'House of God'. Today it's the main church of Latvia's Evangelical Lutheran Church and the seat of the archbishop.

Bishop Albert, the founder of Riga, started the cathedral in the early 13th century. It's built from red brick, and the walls reach up to 2 metres thick in places, more like a fortress than a church. The floor plan is shaped like a cross, and rounded vaults rest on heavy pillars. Over eight centuries the building has grown, burned and been rebuilt, so it now carries a bit of every era, from Romanesque and Gothic to Art Nouveau touches around the door.

The story starts in 1211, when Bishop Albert held a ceremony to consecrate the land, just outside the old city ramparts where Liv fishermen had lived. Building went slowly. Albert didn't live to see it finished. He died in 1229 and was buried inside the church, according to the chronicles 'under the third stone, right under the chandelier'.

The work was led by master builders from Gotland and Germany, with local craftsmen doing the labour. A brick works had opened in Riga in the 1220s, which is why the cathedral is brick rather than stone. Money was the constant problem. To keep the work going, popes offered indulgences. In 1254 Pope Innocent IV promised forty days' remission of sins to anyone in Riga who donated. A fire in 1547 nearly destroyed the church and its monastery, and the baroque tower you see today only went up in 1775.

The cathedral is famous for its organ. A first organ was installed here in the late 16th century, covered in fine woodcarving. In 1884 it was replaced by a bigger, richer-sounding instrument, and at the time this was the largest organ in the world. It stands about 25 metres tall and 11 metres wide.

Its pipes are made from several kinds of wood, including maple, spruce, oak and pear, while the metal pipes are cast from a lead and tin alloy. The French writer Honoré de Balzac admired the organ as an instrument a skilled player could draw anything from. After a full restoration it still sounds like a whole orchestra. The cathedral holds regular organ concerts, along with morning and Sunday services.

One thing you'll notice is that you step down to reach the door. The cathedral was built on a low hill, but its foundations now sit several metres below street level. The 13th-century Gothic portal, once the main entrance, is deeply sunk into the ground, even though it has never moved.

There are two reasons. Over the centuries the houses around it burned and collapsed, and each new one was built on the rubble, so the ground slowly rose. On top of that, the banks of the Daugava and the area around the cathedral were raised with sand to hold back floods. It didn't always work. The river flooded the church several times, and a plaque on the wall marks the flood of 1709, when the water reached head height. During the war against Napoleon in 1812 the cathedral was used as a food store, and in the 1991 barricades it served as a field hospital.

High on the spire sits a golden weathercock, and it comes with a good story. The first rooster went up in the late 16th century. The tale goes that it was gilded on one side and painted black on the other, so people could read the wind. When the wind blew off the sea, the gilded side turned towards the city, a good omen for merchants, because ships could sail into port with goods. When the black side showed, it meant a quiet day with little trade. More likely the gilding just wore away in the harsh sea wind.

You can see the original rooster up close in the cathedral's cloister, the covered gallery around the old monastery courtyard. Built in the 13th century, its 26 arches once echoed with monks singing by candlelight. Today the gallery also holds old cannons, grave slabs, antique clocks and other pieces saved from the church over the centuries.