Make songs of joy to Christ, our head

Author: Jiří Tranovský

Jiří Třanovský (Polish: Jerzy Trzanowski, Slovak: Juraj Tranovský, Latin: Georgius Tranoscius) (9 April 1592, Teschen, Silesia – 29 May 1637, Liptovský Sv. Mikuláš, Upper Hungary), was a hymnwriter from the Cieszyn Silesia. He was sometimes called the father of Slovak hymnody and the "Luther of the Slavs." His name is sometimes anglicized to George. Třanovský was born in Teschen, and studied at Guben and Kolberg. In 1607, he was admitted to the University of Wittenberg where Martin Luther had taught less than a century earlier. He traveled in Bohemia and Silesia in 1612 and became a teacher at St. Nicholas Gymnasium in Prague. Later, he became rector of a school in Holešov, Moravia. In 1616 he was ordained a priest in Meziř… Go to person page >

Translator: Jaroslav J. Vajda

Jaroslav J. Vajda (b. Lorain, Ohio, 1919; d. 2008) Born of Czechoslovakian parents, Vajda was educated at Concordia College in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. Ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1944, he served congregations in Pennsylvania and Indiana until 1963. He was editor of the periodicals The Lutheran Beacon (1959-1963) and This Day (1963-1971) and book editor and developer for Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis from 1971 until his retirement in 1986. Working mainly with hymn texts, Vajda served on several Lutheran commissions of worship. A writer of original poetry since his teens, he was the author of They Followed the King (1965) and Follow the King (1977). His translations from S… Go to person page >