Our Rector
Fr Matthew C. Dallman, Obl.S.B., began his ministry in our parish on 1 September, 2021 and was instituted and inducted as our Rector on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 Sept 2021).
Fr Dallman grew up in the Lutheran tradition in Wisconsin, though as a young adult lost interest in the faith. Some seventeen years later, at age thirty-five, after twelve years of marriage, and four children, the stirrings of the Holy Spirit drew him again to active Christianity, which he found in a parish in Riverside, Illinois (outside Chicago): St Paul's Episcopal Parish.
At St Paul's, Riverside, he became active in many aspects of the parish and soon thereafter discerned a call from God to the priesthood. He was ordained to the diaconate on St Barnabas (11 June) 2016 and to the priesthood on St Lucy (13 December) 2016, both by the Rt Rev. Daniel H. Martins of Springfield. He then served as priest-in-charge for five years of the two churches of the Episcopal Parish of Tazewell County in Illinois: St Paul's, Pekin and All Saints', Morton. In 2017, he made his final act of oblation to the St Benet-Biscop chapter of St John's Benedictine Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.
Fr Dallman is the founder of Akenside Institute for English Spirituality, based upon in his expertise in the theology of Martin Thornton. Previously he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Washington University in St Louis, a Master of Arts in Liturgical Ministry from Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, and a Masters in Theological Studies in Anglican Studies (Ascetical Theology) from Wisconsin’s Nashotah House Seminary. He also studied adult formation (mystagogy) through summer study at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. He has led Lent retreats for parish vestries and diocesan clergy conferences.
As a young man, Fr Dallman was focused primarily on athletics, many sports but focused on football. He was quarterback of his
high school and college teams. In college he majored in English literature which led to a fourteen-year career as a copy editor in cities throughout the upper Midwest and Northeast. He also developed a parallel music career that included a founding a rock band, a jazz band, and composing music for films and wedding ceremonies.
More recently, he has developed a passion for Gregorian plainsong in the English/Anglican tradition which finds daily expression in his family's daily prayer of Mattins and Evensong. He also enjoys making sourdough bread and mead, helps in the homeschooling of their five children: Twyla, Isadora, Oona, Marla, and Martin, and looks forward hopefully to again raise chickens as his family did for two years in Pekin, Illinois.
Fr Dallman grew up in the Lutheran tradition in Wisconsin, though as a young adult lost interest in the faith. Some seventeen years later, at age thirty-five, after twelve years of marriage, and four children, the stirrings of the Holy Spirit drew him again to active Christianity, which he found in a parish in Riverside, Illinois (outside Chicago): St Paul's Episcopal Parish.
At St Paul's, Riverside, he became active in many aspects of the parish and soon thereafter discerned a call from God to the priesthood. He was ordained to the diaconate on St Barnabas (11 June) 2016 and to the priesthood on St Lucy (13 December) 2016, both by the Rt Rev. Daniel H. Martins of Springfield. He then served as priest-in-charge for five years of the two churches of the Episcopal Parish of Tazewell County in Illinois: St Paul's, Pekin and All Saints', Morton. In 2017, he made his final act of oblation to the St Benet-Biscop chapter of St John's Benedictine Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.
Fr Dallman is the founder of Akenside Institute for English Spirituality, based upon in his expertise in the theology of Martin Thornton. Previously he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Washington University in St Louis, a Master of Arts in Liturgical Ministry from Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, and a Masters in Theological Studies in Anglican Studies (Ascetical Theology) from Wisconsin’s Nashotah House Seminary. He also studied adult formation (mystagogy) through summer study at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. He has led Lent retreats for parish vestries and diocesan clergy conferences.
As a young man, Fr Dallman was focused primarily on athletics, many sports but focused on football. He was quarterback of his
high school and college teams. In college he majored in English literature which led to a fourteen-year career as a copy editor in cities throughout the upper Midwest and Northeast. He also developed a parallel music career that included a founding a rock band, a jazz band, and composing music for films and wedding ceremonies.
More recently, he has developed a passion for Gregorian plainsong in the English/Anglican tradition which finds daily expression in his family's daily prayer of Mattins and Evensong. He also enjoys making sourdough bread and mead, helps in the homeschooling of their five children: Twyla, Isadora, Oona, Marla, and Martin, and looks forward hopefully to again raise chickens as his family did for two years in Pekin, Illinois.