Jiří Třanovský * 1592, † 1637,

       He was born in Cieszyn, the son of Walentyn Trzanowski, a boilerman in the brewery and Jadwiga neé Zientek, in a house in Stary Targ. He went to school in Cieszyn and then to Latin schools in Gubin, in Lusatia and in Kołobrzeg. In 1607 he began to study at the University of Wittenberg, from which he graduate in 1611. He then worked as a teacher in Prague and Třebon in Bohemia and Holeąov in Moravia. In 1615 he was appointed rector of a school in Valaske Mezirici in Moravia, and in the following year he was appointed as the town’s pastor.
       In 1625 Trzanowski returned to Cieszyn with his family and in 1626 became the court pastor to the Lutheran lords of Bielsko, the Counts Sunegkh, later worked as a pastor in Bielsko, from where he had to flee in 1627. He moved to the Sunegkhs’ residence in Slovakia. He was pastor at Orava Castle, and from 1631 onward pastor in Liptovský Mikuláą, where he died. He published in Latin; Odarum sacrarum (Brzeg, 1628) and Phiala odoramentorum (Levoča, 1635), but his most important work was Cithara sanctorum, also published in Levoča in 1636. This hymn-book containing over 400 hymns was published in over 150 editions, was still being used in the 20th century and played an enormous role in the propagation of the Reformation in Slavic countries. For this reason Trzanowski is referred to as the “Slav Luther”.