Jiří Třanovský

Jiří Třanovský (, , ; 9 April 1592 – 29 May 1637), was a Lutheran priest and hymnwriter from the Cieszyn Silesia. Sometimes called the father of Slovak hymnody and the “Luther of the Slavs,” Třanovský’s name is sometimes anglicized to George Tranoscius. Both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada remember his life and work annually, on the anniversary of his death. Life Třanovský was born in Cieszyn, 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. Upon graduation, he traveled in Bohemia proper and Silesia and in 1612 and became a teacher at St. Nicholas Gymnasium in Prague. Later, he became rector of a school in Holešov, Moravia. In 1616 Třanovský was ordained a priest in Meziříčí and served as a pastor for four years. Persecution of Lutherans in Bohemia (after the Battle of White Mountain) under Ferdinand II forced him into exile. After imprisonment in 1623 and the deaths of two of his children from plague the following year, Třanovský accepted a call to be pastor to a church in Bielitz, Teschen Silesia. In 1627, he also became pe