The Yale Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies appointed Denys Turner, a University of Cambridge theologian, to a senior position in historical theology Friday, after a two-year international search. Turner will assume his new position effective July 1.

An authority on medieval theologians, he has been the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge since 1999. A Roman Catholic, he has focused his research on Christian mysticism and the links between mysticism and the political commitments of Christianity.

Divinity School Dean Harold Attridge said he is glad to have Turner join the staff.

“I am looking forward to having him as a productive colleague,” Attridge said. “[He has] an ambitious research program.”

A graduate of the University of Oxford, Turner has taught at the University of Birmingham, the University of Bristol and the University College in Dublin. He has also been a member of the Executive Committee of the Catholic Institute for International Relations and the Committee for the World of Work of the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops of England and Wales.