About
Research
Email: uwemichael.lang@stmarys.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7808 0900
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. He lectures at St Mary’s University and Allen Hall Seminary, London.
Fr Lang is an associate staff member at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham. 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. He is the editor of Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal.
From 2008 to 2012, Fr Lang 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. From 2012 to 2018, he was a lecturer in Theology at Heythrop College, University of London.
Research
Research profile
Fr Lang's doctoral research at Oxford 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.
Selected publications
Books
- John Philoponus and the Controversies over Chalcedon in the Sixth Century. A Study and Translation of the Arbiter, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense 47 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001).
- 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).
- A Short History of the Roman Mass (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2024).
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).
- Co-edited with Daniel Cardó, The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024).
Journal articles and book chapters
- “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.
- “Votive Masses of the Holy Face of Christ in Early Printed Diocesan Missals”, in Mediaeval Studies 79 (2017), 165-203.
- “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.
- “Sacramental Concelebration: Historical and Theological Perspectives on Contemporary Practice”, in Antiphon 27 (2023), 55-80.
- “Transforming the World into Communion with God: The Sacred Liturgy in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger”, in Communio: International Catholic Review 50 (2023), 657-684.
- “John Henry Newman on Church Architecture: Preservation of Type and Power Assimilation”, in Beauty, Devotion and Spirituality: The Art and Culture of the Oratorians of Saint Philip Neri, ed. Joaquim Rodrigues dos Santos (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024), 335–347.