About: Matins in Lutheranism

In the Lutheran Church, Matins is a morning-time liturgical order combining features that were found in the Medieval orders of Matins, Lauds, and Prime. Lutherans generally retained the Order of Matins for use in schools and in larger city parishes throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In some places, Matins continued to be sung in Latin still longer. For example, at the close of the eighteenth century in Leipzig, one historian records that "every Sunday and festival day the canonical hours taken over from the Roman Catholic Church are still being chanted before [the chief service] at 6:30 am." The orders experienced a revival in the Confessional Renewal that took place in the 19th century, and now have a stable place in modern Lutheran liturgical books.