Zbigņevs Stankevičs

Zbigņevs Stankevičs (; born 15 February 1955) is a Latvian Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of Riga since 2010. He previously served in leadership at the Seminary Institute of Religious Sciences in Riga.

Ecclesiastical career Stankevičs was born in Lejasciems into a family of Polish descent. In 1978, he obtained the Diploma in Engineering at the Riga Polytechnical Institute. He worked for 12 years prior to pursuing religious studies, first at a naval centre and then at a bank. At that time, he was Vice President of the 'Polish Union of Latvia'. After the fall of communism in Europe and the restoration of Latvian independence he entered the seminary in 1990 in Lublin, Poland. He studied philosophy and theology at the Catholic University of Lublin, receiving a Masters in Theology in 1996. He was ordained a priest on 16 June 1996 for the archdiocese of Riga. He was consecrated a bishop on 8 August 2010 by Cardinal Pujats, assisted by Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, the apostolic nuncio to the Baltic states, and by Archbishop Józef Kowalczyk, the primate of Poland. The ceremony was held in the Evangelical Lutheran cathedral in Riga, which had been the Catholic cathedral prior to the Protestant Reformation, because the current seat of the Catholic Archdiocese, St. James Cathedral, was too small to accommodate invited dignitaries, including Latvian president Valdis Zatlers. He was installed in the St. James Cathedral on 21 August. Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, also attended.

On 12 June 2012 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity for a five-year renewable term.

In October 2015, he attended the Synod of Bishops on the Family as the elected representative of the Episcopal Conference of Latvia.

Stankevičs is the Grand Prior of the Latvian Lieutenancy of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.