The five stanzas, composed in 1886, was written by the German Jesuit and hymnologist Guido Maria Dreves, and the melody was composed in 1928, three years after the introduction of the Feast of Christ the King, by the Austrian church musician Josef Venantius von Wöss.

Dreves published the text in a collection of self-composed hymns entitled Kränze ums Kirchenjahr (Paderborn 1886).

There, between an Himmelfahrts and several Pentecost Lieder, it is combined with two other hymns under the heading Von des Herren Königtum [Of the Lord's Kingship].

In this context, the text is reminiscent of the Exultet from the liturgy of the Easter Vigil.

[3] The hymn is in this setting without the second verse, which deals with the crown of Christ and his throne, in the Gotteslob under number 375 and is also sung ecumenically.