Rate My Professor Bridget Nichols

Dr Bridget Nichols serves as Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin, where she joined the staff in July 2017. She holds a BA, MA and PhD. Nichols grew up in South Africa and studied English Literature and Classics at the University of Cape Town. She taught in the English Department at the University of the Witwatersrand before pursuing doctoral research at the University of Durham. Her doctoral dissertation, focused on the interpretation of Reformation and modern liturgies of the Church of England in performance, was published as the book Liturgical Hermeneutics: Interpreting Liturgical Rites in Performance by Peter Lang in 1996. From 1998 to 2017 she served as Lay Chaplain and Research Assistant to three Bishops of Ely. She is a Consultant to the Church of England Liturgical Commission and maintains active involvement in liturgical scholarship and practice.

Her research interests include the nature of liturgical language as ritual language, the relationship between worshipping communities and authority including conflicts between authorised and locally generated language, gendered language, bodily participation in liturgy, Anglican liturgy, liturgy and ritual, worship and authority, psalter collects and the relationship between liturgy and the Bible. In 2022 she co-edited Lively Oracles of God: Perspectives on the Bible and Liturgy with Gordon Jeanes, published by Liturgical Press. She is returning to a long-term project on early Psalter collects with a view to preparing a translation and commentary. Nichols has held leadership positions including President of Societas Liturgica from 2019 to 2021. She is a member of the Society for Liturgical Study, Reviews editor of Anaphora, current Chair of the Liturgy Association of Ireland, current Treasurer of the Church of Ireland Historical Society and Trustee of the Alcuin Club. Her committee roles include ex officio membership of the Church of Ireland Liturgical Advisory Committee since 2017, membership of the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland Working Group on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity since 2018, membership of the Irish Churches Council and the Church of Ireland Council for Christian Unity and Dialogue since 2023, and prior service on the Church of England Liturgical Commission from 2011 to 2017 and the Academic Board of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Examination in Theology from 2012 to 2017. These contributions highlight her influence in Anglican liturgical studies and church life.