Book Description

Excerpt from Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) This Hymnal and Liturgies is presented to the Congregations of the Moravian Church in America, in accordance with a series of enactments of the Synods of 1913 and 1920, of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in America. A committee, constituted of nine representatives of the Northern Province and two of the Southern Province, was appointed to revise the Hymnal; a committee of five was also appointed to revise the Liturgy. To the former was committed the task of assembling all parts of the work, determining details of arrangement and of publication. Both committees aimed steadfastly to bring the new Hymn Book up to the standards of modern hymnological and liturgical practice, without impairing its Moravian character. This latest addition to Moravian Hymnals has behind it a long and noble ancestry. It is the lineal descendant of the earliest collection of its kind. The Unitas F ratrum, or Moravian Church, was the first among Protestant churches to publish a hymn-book. It appeared in the Bohemian language, at Prague, in 1501. It contained versions of old Latin Hymns, together with many original compositions, mostly by John Hus and Bishop Luke of Prague. Subsequent issues followed up to the year 1569, some of them appearing in the Polish and German languages. The tunes, printed at the head of each hymn, were partly Gregorian, partly folk-song melodies adapted to the uses of the sanctuary, and partly original compositions. The hymns of these collections were a power in the Church, in Bohemia, Moravia and the regions beyond. They gave life to public worship, they were sung in the homes of noble and peasant, they set forth the pure Gospel in strains that captivated thousands of hearts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.