On June 28th, 2017 we had the privilege of hosting a presentation by Dr. Ian Christie-Miller on his work on the earliest printed books in the Baltic. These books were all variations of Luther’s Small Catechism that were translated into Finnish, Estonian, and Lithuanian. The Finnish catechism in particular was used not only for catechesis but also for teaching people how to read. Interestingly much can be told of the history of the books from the watermarks on the pages which trace the origin of the printing of the catechism. One catechism, printed in Wittenberg, was printed on paper that came from the same source that Martin Luther used for some of his writings. In addition to the fascinating historical lesson about how they made octavo books in the 16th Century we also got to hear music from the Lithuanian catechism printed in 1547 which happened to have hymns in it. Several of these hymns were recognizable as “We All Believe in One True God” (LSB 954), “Our Father, Who From Heaven Above” (LSB 766), and “My Soul Now Praise Your Maker” (LSB 820). The hymns themselves were recorded in Lithuanian thanks to a grant from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. We thank Dr. Ian Christie-Miller for a wonderful presentation.
