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Fr Uwe Michael Lang

Lecturer - Mater Ecclesiae College

Fr Uwe Michael Lang

About Research

Email: uwemichael.lang@stmarys.ac.uk

Biography

Fr Uwe Michael Lang, a native of Nuremberg, Germany, is a priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in London. He holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford and teaches Church History at Mater Ecclesiae College, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and at Allen Hall Seminary, London. He is an Associate Staff Member at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, and on the Visiting Faculty of the Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, Illinois. He is the Editor of Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal.

From 2008 to 2012 he was a staff member of Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and from 2008 to 2013 he was a Consultor to the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. In the academic year 2011/2012, he taught as Professore incaricato for history of Christian worship and hagiography at the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology in Rome


Research

Research profile

Fr Lang's doctoral research focused on the history of doctrine in the early Christian period, in particular the Christological controversies after the Council of Chalcedon. Since then, his research interests have shifted towards liturgical studies, with a strong historical emphasis. Among his interests are ritual, language and non-verbal expression, including questions of sacred architecture, art and music.

He serves on the Council of the Henry Bradshaw Society and on the Board of Directors of the Society for Catholic Liturgy. He is a Corresponding Member of the Neuer Schülerkreis Joseph Ratzinger / Papst Benedikt XVI.

Selected publications

Books
  • Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer, with a Foreword by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2nd ed. 2009).
  • The Voice of the Church at Prayer: Reflections on Liturgy and Language (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012).
  • Signs of the Holy One: Liturgy, Ritual and the Expression of the Sacred (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015).
  • The Roman Mass: From Early Christian Origins to Tridentine Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Edited books
  • Authentic Liturgical Renewal in Contemporary Perspective (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017).
  • The Fullness of Divine Worship: The Sacred Liturgy and Its Renewal, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018.
Journal articles
  • “Augustine’s Conception of Sacrifice in City of God, Book X, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice”, in Antiphon 19 (2015), 29-51.
  • “Origins of the Liturgical Veneration of the Roman Veronica”, in The European Fortune of the Roman Veronica in the Middle Ages, ed. Amanda Murphy et al., Convivium Supplementum 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017, 144-155).
  • “Liturgical Veneration of the Holy Face of Christ in Late Medieval France”, in Ephemerides Liturgicae 133 (2019), 330‑341.
  • “Goodness of Forms: The Demand for the Artistic Quality of Music for the Liturgy”, in Antiphon 23 (2019), 311-331.

Media enquiries

For media enquiries, please contact our Press Office Team by emailing press.office@stmarys.ac.uk.