O Antiphons
The "O Antiphons" provide a wonderful source of meditation to help prepare us for the Nativity. Traditionally chanted before and after the Magnificat in Evening Prayer during the last week of Advent, they help connect Old Testament prophecy to the Messiah born in a manger. Listen first to this wonderful introduction by Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio:
About us
Earth & Altar is dedicated to the retrieval and renewal of the Anglican parish tradition in the contemporary world.
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Who We Are​
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Director. Fr Kyle Edward Williams is Curate of All Saints Anglican Church. He holds a PhD in American history from Rutgers University and a Master of Religion from Trinity Anglican Seminary. He is the author of Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation (W. W. Norton, 2024), a history of corporate power and social responsibility, and he is at work on The Unbeaten Bounds: The Parish in the Late Modern World. He served as Senior Editor of The Hedgehog Review, where he remains a contributing editor, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Compact, The Baffler, Mere Orthodoxy, and Raritan. He serves on the board of Mars Hill Audio and on the advisory board of St. Dunstan's Academy. In 2025 he left his position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture to enter parish ministry, with the intention of building work that serves the wider Anglican community and the world beyond it.
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Assistant Director. Fr. Sean McDermott is Rector of All Saints Anglican Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the founder of Earth & Altar. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Greek from Hillsdale College and a Master of Religion from Trinity Anglican Seminary. He is a priest of the Diocese of the Eastern United States in the Anglican Province of America.​ He founded Earth & Altar in 2019 to gather and publish resources for parish life in the Anglican tradition — liturgy, education, fellowship, and spiritual direction — drawn from the wisdom of the historic Church and made usable by ordinary parishes. He is co-author, with Jackie Jamison, of Guide to the Mass from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer: For Anglican Youth and Newcomers (Earth & Altar Press). He has spoken on the flourishing of parish life at synods and retreats across the Anglican world, including for the Anglican Province of America, the Anglican Catholic Church, and the Anglican Church in America.
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Executive Editor. Fr. Mark Perkins is Executive Editor of Earth & Altar, which he co-founded, and serves as Assistant Headmaster and Chaplain at St. Dunstan's Academy, an Anglican boys' boarding school at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Roseland, Virginia. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Hillsdale College and a Master of Religion from Trinity Anglican Seminary. He writes and speaks widely on parish life and Anglican formation. His work has appeared in Christianity Today, First Things, Touchstone, Mere Orthodoxy, and at the Institute for Family Studies. He has addressed audiences at the Anglican Joint Synods and in parishes of the Diocese of the Living Word, the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic States, the Diocese of Fort Worth, and the Diocese of Christ Our Hope in the Anglican Church in North America, as well as in the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church. He was recently a featured speaker at "The Future of Global Anglicanism" symposium at the Reformed Episcopacy Seminary.
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The name Earth & Altar comes from a hymn written by G. K. Chesterton. Find it here.
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