Our Rector
Bishop Gregory Brewer with Fr Dallman and his family after his Institution as Rector.
Fr Matthew C. Dallman, Obl.S.B., was called by God to our parish in September, 2021, and was instituted and inducted as our twelfth Rector on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 Sept).
His Background
Fr Dallman grew up in the Lutheran tradition in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a young man, Fr Dallman was focused on athletics and came to focus on football. He was quarterback of his high school and college teams. At Washington University in St Louis he majored in English literature, Creative Writing and Poetry) which led to a fourteen-year career as a copy editor in cities throughout the upper Midwest and Northeast. Parallel to that, he had a music career that included a founding a rock band, a jazz band, and composing music for films and wedding ceremonies.
Upon beginning university studies at age 18, he moved away from Christianity into a "spiritual wilderness." Into his 30s he mildly explored Buddhism and studied western Greek philosophy and literature. But at age thirty-five, after twelve years of marriage and four children, the stirrings of the Holy Spirit drew him again to seek robust Christianity, which he found in an Episcopal parish in Riverside, Illinois (outside Chicago): Saint Paul's Parish. There, he became engaged in many aspects of the parish and soon thereafter discerned a call from God to the priesthood. His mentor was Father Thomas A. Fraser, Rector of St Paul's, Riverside for 42 years.
Married in 1999, Fr Dallman and his wife Hannah lived in Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St Paul, Boston, and Brooklyn before settling in Chicago for thirteen years where they raised their four daughters. In Pekin, Illinois, their son was born. Fr Dallman enjoys hiking, cooking, making traditional 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.
His Priesthood
He was ordained to the diaconate on St Barnabas (11 June) 2016 and to the priesthood on St Lucy (13 December) 2016 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: Saint 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 firmly maintains an orthodox-catholic witness to historic, apostolic and patristic Christianity first revealed in the Upper Room in Jerusalem after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, and which lives on through Anglican/Episcopal tradition growing out of ancient and medieval British/English expression. Affirming the dogmatic teachings of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, he upholds and practices the orthodox-catholic dogma and doctrine of the Seven Sacraments ordered and celebrated ecumenically (i.e., universally), especially that of the Sacraments of Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders.
In his ministry, Fr Dallman is committed to holy and reverent celebration of the Liturgy, biblical preaching and teaching centered on Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our discipleship in Him, as well as offering spiritual direction to those seeking to deepen their relationship with Him. He has a strong devotion to Holy Icons as well as a passion for Gregorian plainsong in the Anglican tradition which finds expression in daily sung prayer of Matins and Evensong with his family.
He is the founder of Akenside Institute for English Spirituality, which grew out of his expertise in the theology of Martin Thornton. He received a Masters degree in Theological Studies in Anglican Studies (Ascetical Theology) from Wisconsin’s Nashotah House Seminary and a Master of Arts degree in Liturgical Ministry from Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union. He also studied adult catechesis and formation through three summer study conferences at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, where one summer conference he also was a presenter.
His Background
Fr Dallman grew up in the Lutheran tradition in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a young man, Fr Dallman was focused on athletics and came to focus on football. He was quarterback of his high school and college teams. At Washington University in St Louis he majored in English literature, Creative Writing and Poetry) which led to a fourteen-year career as a copy editor in cities throughout the upper Midwest and Northeast. Parallel to that, he had a music career that included a founding a rock band, a jazz band, and composing music for films and wedding ceremonies.
Upon beginning university studies at age 18, he moved away from Christianity into a "spiritual wilderness." Into his 30s he mildly explored Buddhism and studied western Greek philosophy and literature. But at age thirty-five, after twelve years of marriage and four children, the stirrings of the Holy Spirit drew him again to seek robust Christianity, which he found in an Episcopal parish in Riverside, Illinois (outside Chicago): Saint Paul's Parish. There, he became engaged in many aspects of the parish and soon thereafter discerned a call from God to the priesthood. His mentor was Father Thomas A. Fraser, Rector of St Paul's, Riverside for 42 years.
Married in 1999, Fr Dallman and his wife Hannah lived in Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St Paul, Boston, and Brooklyn before settling in Chicago for thirteen years where they raised their four daughters. In Pekin, Illinois, their son was born. Fr Dallman enjoys hiking, cooking, making traditional 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.
His Priesthood
He was ordained to the diaconate on St Barnabas (11 June) 2016 and to the priesthood on St Lucy (13 December) 2016 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: Saint 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 firmly maintains an orthodox-catholic witness to historic, apostolic and patristic Christianity first revealed in the Upper Room in Jerusalem after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, and which lives on through Anglican/Episcopal tradition growing out of ancient and medieval British/English expression. Affirming the dogmatic teachings of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, he upholds and practices the orthodox-catholic dogma and doctrine of the Seven Sacraments ordered and celebrated ecumenically (i.e., universally), especially that of the Sacraments of Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders.
In his ministry, Fr Dallman is committed to holy and reverent celebration of the Liturgy, biblical preaching and teaching centered on Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our discipleship in Him, as well as offering spiritual direction to those seeking to deepen their relationship with Him. He has a strong devotion to Holy Icons as well as a passion for Gregorian plainsong in the Anglican tradition which finds expression in daily sung prayer of Matins and Evensong with his family.
He is the founder of Akenside Institute for English Spirituality, which grew out of his expertise in the theology of Martin Thornton. He received a Masters degree in Theological Studies in Anglican Studies (Ascetical Theology) from Wisconsin’s Nashotah House Seminary and a Master of Arts degree in Liturgical Ministry from Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union. He also studied adult catechesis and formation through three summer study conferences at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, where one summer conference he also was a presenter.