About Dan

Biography

St. Francis Pet Blessing at Atonement in 2023. Photo courtesy of Charles Bonilla.

Dan is currently serving as Interim Rector of Church of the Atonement in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. Dan is from Lombard IL, where he lived until a teenager, when his family moved to Sarasota FL. Dan graduated from Stetson University with a major in religious studies in 2005. He received his Master of Divinity from the University of Chicago in 2009. While pursuing ordination, he worked as Associate for Communications and Administration at St Paul & the Redeemer in Hyde Park, Chicago. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2012, and served at St Paul & the Redeemer as Assistant Rector, then was promoted to Associate Rector. In 2017, Dan and his now-husband Raff Donelson relocated to Baton Rouge for Raff’s career as a law professor and philosopher at Louisiana State University. Dan did supply work at several churches in the Diocese of Louisiana, including long-term supply at Historic St. Luke’s in New Orleans. In 2019, Dan returned to the Chicago area to serve as Interim Rector at Annunciation of Our Lady in Gurnee IL. In 2020, Raff and Dan relocated to central Pennsylvania, where Raff was appointed a professor at Penn State. Due to the uncertainties of the pandemic and the difficulty of aligning his career with Raff’s, Dan decided to spend 2020 and 2021 pursuing certification in secondary education. In 2022, Raff received a tenured appointment at Chicago-Kent College of Law, allowing them to return to the city they both love and allowing Dan to resume his pastoral career.

Congregations served

**St Paul & the Redeemer**
Chicago

**Assistant/Associate Rector**
Nov 2011 *till* Jul 2017
Assoc. for Communications
& Administration
Oct 2008 *till* Nov 2011

**Historic St Luke’s**
New Orleans

**Longterm Supply Priest**
Summer 2018 *till* Jan 2019

**Annunciation** **of Our Lady**
Gurnee IL

**Interim Rector**
Mar 2019 *till* Feb 2020

**The** **Atonement**
Chicago

**Interim Rector**
Jul 2022 *till* Jul 2023

Fun Stuff

Dan and his husband Raff at the Grand Canyon in 2019

Dan …

is a hiker and is trying to visit as many national parks as he can. He also tries to get up early every morning to walk along the lakefront, which is a different experience every day.
follows the world of indie video games, though he spends more time learning about video games than actually playing them.
endeavors to be a film buff and watches as much old Hollywood, sci-fi, horror, noir, and queer movies as he can make time for.
would be, in an alternate universe, a meteorologist, a landscape architect, or a theater producer.