Editing Cosmo Gordon Lang (section)

===In office===
[[Image:Lambeth Palace Great Hall fig tree.jpg|thumb|alt= A long, low building of brick and stonework, with arched windows. It is partially obscured by trees and shrubs. The slate roof features a six-sided tower of stone and glass.|[[Lambeth Palace]], the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury in London]]
Archbishop Davidson resigned in July 1928, believed to have been the first Archbishop of Canterbury ever to retire voluntarily.<ref name= Time1928/> On 26 July Lang was notified by the Prime Minister, [[Stanley Baldwin]], that he would be the successor; William Temple would succeed Lang at York.<ref>Lockhart, pp. 309–11</ref> Lang was enthroned as the new Archbishop of Canterbury on 4 December 1928,<ref name= Wilk1/> the first bachelor to hold the appointment in 150&nbsp;years. A contemporary ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine article described Lang as "forthright and voluble" and as looking "like George Washington".<ref name= Time1928>{{cite magazine|title= Religion:York to Canterbury|magazine=Time|publisher=Time Inc.|location= New York|date= 6 August 1928|url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787459,00.html|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101121035432/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787459,00.html|url-status= dead|archive-date= 21 November 2010}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Lang's first three years at Canterbury were marked by intermittent illnesses, which required periods of convalescence away from his duties.<ref name= Wilk4/> After 1932, he enjoyed good health for the rest of his life.<ref>Lockhart, p. 327</ref>
[[Image:Cosmo Lang by Laszlo.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Portrait of Archbishop Lang by [[Philip de László]], 1932]]
Lang avoided continuation of the Prayer Book controversy of 1928 by allowing the parliamentary process to lapse. He then authorised a statement permitting use of the rejected Book locally if the parochial church council gave approval. The issue remained dormant for the rest of Lang's tenure at Canterbury.<ref>Lockhart, p. 390</ref> He led the 1930 Lambeth Conference, where further progress was made in improving relations with the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]]es and the [[Old Catholics]],<ref name= Wilk4>{{cite odnb|last= Wilkinson|first= Alan|title= (William) Cosmo Gordon Lang (1864–1945)|id=34398}}  ("Archbishop of Canterbury" section)</ref> although again no agreement could be reached with the non-episcopal Free Churches.<ref>{{cite news|title= Reunion and Lambeth 1930|work= The Sydney Morning Herald|date= 17 January 1931|url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19310117&id=jNEQAAAAIBAJ&pg=7231,415007|access-date= 7 August 2009}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> On an issue of greater concern to ordinary people, the Conference gave limited approval, for the first time, to the use of contraceptive devices, an issue in which Lang had no interest.<ref>Thatcher, pp. 178–79</ref> Through the 1930s Lang continued to work for Church unity. In 1933 the Church of England assembly formed a Council on Foreign Relations and, in the following years, numerous exchange visits with Orthodox delegations took place, a process only halted by the outbreak of war. Lang's 1939 visit to the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople]] is regarded as the high point of his ecumenical record.<ref name=Wilk4/> [[George Bell (bishop)|George Bell, Bishop of Chichester]], maintained that no one in the Anglican Communion did more than Lang to promote the unity movement.<ref name= Wilk4/>

In 1937 the Oxford Conference on Church and Society, which later gave birth to the [[World Council of Churches]],<ref>Hastings, p. 272</ref> produced what was according to the church historian Adrian Hastings "the most serious approach to the problems of society that the Church had yet managed",<ref>Hastings, p. 296</ref> but without Lang's close involvement. By this time Lang's identification with the poor had largely vanished, as had his interest in social reform.<ref name= Buch170>Buchanan, p. 170</ref> In the Church Assembly his closest ally was the aristocratic [[Lord Hugh Cecil]]; Hastings maintains that the Church of England in the 1930s was controlled "less by Lang and Temple in tandem than by Lang and Hugh Cecil".<ref>Hastings, p. 253</ref> Lang got on well with [[Hewlett Johnson]], the pro-communist priest who was appointed [[Dean of Canterbury]] in 1931.<ref name= Wilk4/>