The Rev’d Dr. Matthew Cadwell is Old North’s seventh Vicar (and twenty-fourth minister in charge). He was baptized and confirmed in the Scandinavian Lutheran tradition in Minnesota. As a young adult he was received into the Episcopal Church, having been drawn by the liberal catholic tradition in Anglicanism.

The Vicar studied at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and Trinity College in the Toronto School of Theology and the University of Toronto, earning a PhD with specialization in Anglican history and theology. He began ordained ministry in 2004 serving parishes in the Diocese of Toronto in the Anglican Church of Canada. Prior to appointment at Old North in 2020, he served 12 years as rector of Emmanuel Church in Wakefield, Mass.

Dr. Cadwell has taught theology in the Faculty of Divinity at Trinity College in Toronto and the Diocese of Massachusetts’s program for deacons. He currently teaches Anglican and Episcopal history in Bexley-Seabury Seminary’s baptismal living program. He serves on diocesan council and the Library & Archives board. He is an associate and regularly officiates in the convent chapel for the Sisters of St. Anne in Arlington.

His ancestry includes Patriots and Loyalists during the American Revolution, followed by immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Sweden, and Finland. He cherishes Old North as a national treasure and icon of American freedom, as well as our enduring relationship with Boston’s British and Commonwealth communities. He enjoys Scandinavian baking, watercolor painting, and speaks Swedish.