The Rev’d Dr. Matthew Cadwell is Old North’s seventh Vicar (and twenty-fourth minister in charge). Baptized and confirmed in the Scandinavian Lutheran tradition in Minnesota, as a young adult he was received into the Episcopal Church, 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 was ordained in 2004, first 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 in the Faculty of Divinity at Trinity College, Toronto, in the Diocese of Massachusetts’s program for deacons, and currently in Bexley-Seabury Seminary’s baptismal living program. His published works include two book-length institutional histories, chapters on Anglican theologians Richard Hooker and William Temple, a journal essay on Old North history, and several reviews. He serves on diocesan council and the Library & Archives board, and is an Associate of the Order of St. Anne, regularly officiating in the Sisters’ convent chapel 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.