''Siionin virret'' ("Hymns of Zion") is a hymnbook of the Finnish
Awakening religious revival movement (Herännäisyys). The hymnal is used in the traditional
conventicle
A conventicle originally signified no more than an assembly, and was frequently used by ancient writers for a church. At a semantic level ''conventicle'' is only a good Latinized synonym of the Greek word church, and points to Jesus' promise in M ...
'seurat' which is an informal religious gathering taking often place in homes. Hymns of Zion are also sung in the religious summer festival 'Herättäjäjuhlat' of the Awakening movement.
A remarkable part of the hymns derive from the Swedish collection of songs ''
Sions sånger'' from the 1740s. The first edition of the book was published in 1790. A new edition was produced by
Wilhelmi Malmivaara
Wilhelm "Wilhelmi" Malmivaara (until 1900 Malmberg; 13 February 1854 – 12 January 1922) was one of the leaders of Finnish Awakening in the beginning of the 20th century. He was a member of the synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finlan ...
in 1893 with 157 hyms.
Jaakko Haavio edited the next revision which was published in 1971. The current edition dates to 2017 and contains 255 hymns.
Wilhelmi Malmivaara's extensive revision published in 1892 was translated in its entirety into English by Thomas McElwain and published under the title 'Songs of Zion' in 2014.
[Malmivaara, Wilhelmi, Thomas McElwain (transl.) (2014). Songs of Zion. Distributed by Lulu online bookstore.]
External links
''Siionin Virret''- Index, texts and melodies of the hymns.
- Selection of hymns in English.
References
Lutheran hymnals
Finnish Christian hymns
1790 books
1790 in music
Finnish Awakening
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