The Rev’d Dr. Matthew Cadwell was appointed Old North’s seventh Vicar in 2020 (and twenty-fourth minister in charge). Baptized and confirmed in the Scandinavian Lutheran tradition in Minnesota, he was received into the Episcopal Church as a young adult, drawn by the liberal catholic tradition in Anglicanism.

The Vicar studied at Gustavus Adolphus College (BA in Religion & Scandinavian Studies), Episcopal Divinity School (MDiv), and Trinity College in the Toronto School of Theology and the University of Toronto (PhD 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 Old North, 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 deacon formation; 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 convent chapel in Arlington.

The Vicar’s 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.