Two weeks after declaring disaffiliation from the Anglican Church in North America, the Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy, led by the Rt. Rev. Derek Jones, has sued the denomination for trademark infringement and unfair business competitors.
The lawsuit was filed on October 6 in the USA District Court docket for the District of South Carolina.
“ACNA has flatly disregarded Plaintiff’s warnings and has continued to acceptable Plaintiff’s protected marks, usurp Plaintiff’s ecclesiastical and business identification, and disparage Plaintiff and its management,” the lawsuit says.
The jurisdiction seeks to recuperate damages of at the very least $1 million, and probably as excessive as $2 million for unauthorized use of the time period [Special] Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy, the time period Anglican Chaplains, or the emblem of the jurisdiction.
The submitting represents an extra escalation in a battle between the jurisdiction and the ACNA that publicly erupted in late September after the archbishop of the denomination, the Most Rev. Steve Wooden, inhibited Bishop Jones from ministry pending an investigation into allegations in opposition to Jones of misconduct.
When the jurisdiction introduced separation from the ACNA in response, the church’s School of Bishops declared Jones’ seat vacant three days later and elected the Rt. Rev. Jerome Cayangyang, his former suffragan, into his place for continued “management, pastoral care, and oversight” of ACNA chaplains.
The jurisdiction’s legal professionals body the jurisdiction not as a canonical construction of the ACNA, however as a enterprise that gives chaplain endorsements as a service. By its communications concerning the controversy and its assumption of the jurisdiction’s identify and chaplain-endorsing capabilities, they argue, the ACNA has confused authorities businesses, chaplains, and the general public, participating in unfair competitors, chopping into the jurisdiction’s income, and inflicting “irreparable hurt” to the jurisdiction’s “enterprise popularity and goodwill.”
The lawsuit claims that since Jones’ inhibition, the jurisdiction has misplaced half its revenue, half its chaplains, a fifth of its employees, and two-thirds of its missions, chapels, and parishes, since many chaplains have chosen to not observe the jurisdiction’s disaffiliation from the ACNA.
“Due to the ACNA’s actions, [the jurisdiction] is a mere shell of what it was simply over two weeks in the past,” wrote David van Esselstyn, chairman of the jurisdiction’s board, in a request for injunctive reduction from the civil court docket. “It’s barely alive as a corporation.”
‘Heavy-Handed and Vindictive’
Some chaplains at present and previously related to the jurisdiction maintain that the harm to its good identify has been prompted not by the ACNA however by Bishop Jones. At the very least 18 complaints in opposition to Jones shaped the premise of his preliminary inhibition from ministry, all centering on alleged misuses of ecclesiastical disciplinary processes that a number of have described as “heavy-handed” and “vindictive.”
A number of chaplains, who requested anonymity for worry of reprisal, advised The Dwelling Church that Jones has habitually threatened canonical residents who miss tithe funds to the jurisdiction. Threats embrace lack of endorsemen—the attestation required by the Division of Conflict, with out which a chaplain will lose a navy job in 30 days—in addition to ecclesiastical self-discipline, together with deposition from the priesthood.
A replica of the jurisdiction’s canons obtained by TLC exhibits a centralization of monetary management within the bishop that’s unusual in ACNA dioceses. Underneath the canons, the bishop possesses “normal authority and duty for budgetary and financial administration” and creates accounting rules topic to the approval of an government committee appointed by the bishop.
The canons additionally introduce a particular definition of Good Standing that requires member chaplains to tithe on to the jurisdiction or face self-discipline. Chaplains should certify their Good Standing yearly—together with their compliance with the bishop’s tithing coverage, which requires a ten % fee from full-time, part-time, and bivocational chaplains, in addition to from volunteer chaplains with out tithing obligations from different church buildings.
The jurisdiction’s newest annual revenue of $1.2 million stemmed “primarily from the presents and tithes of its membership,” in response to the lawsuit. “The tithes are how Jones funds his group,” one chaplain advised TLC, alleging that Jones has habitually chastised and shamed chaplains in hardship for his or her lack of ability to pay. “We’re his cash pot.”
Chaplains can even lose Good Standing for making an attempt to plan a switch out of the jurisdiction. In search of a change in endorser is uncontroversial amongst navy chaplains usually, one chaplain mentioned, however even chatting with different endorsers has triggered threats of endorsement elimination and disciplinary motion by Jones. One other chaplain mentioned that Jones has equally harassed these in search of switch out of chaplaincy completely and into native ACNA dioceses.
In keeping with the Good Standing rules, chaplains might not “ma[ke] inquiry or contact to work with another ecclesiastical authority with out the information of the Bishop.” The canons additional specify that “any switch of endorsement to a different endorsing authority or company will embrace launch from or termination of Holy Orders.”
“I’ve by no means held onto anyone that didn’t need to be right here,” Jones mentioned in an hour-long video assembly September 22 during which he denied allegations of wrongful use of disciplinary processes and interference with outdoors employment alternatives. Chaplains who spoke with TLC disagreed, citing their experiences of a “controlling surroundings” from which it was unimaginable to “bow out peacefully” with out having their livelihoods threatened.
‘Unbiased Entity’ or ‘Canonical Ministry’?
If using Bishop Jones’ canons are on the coronary heart of the jurisdiction’s inside battle, using the ACNA’s provincial canons is on the coronary heart of its exterior battle. Core to the jurisdiction’s request for civil damages is its declare to be an “impartial ecclesiastical entity” whose canonical membership within the ACNA was “by no means finalized.” Its legal professionals now argue that this prevents the ACNA from claiming the endorsement energy the jurisdiction exercised on its behalf and realizing the “financial features” related to that energy.
A September 29 jurisdiction press launch equally claims that “the ACNA just isn’t at present, nor has it ever been, a licensed endorser” with the Division of Conflict, and that the jurisdiction was the true endorser all alongside. Licensed endorsing agent rosters maintained by the Division of Conflict’s Armed Forces Chaplains Board and the Division of Veterans Affairs checklist the Anglican Church in North America amongst their endorsers, reasonably than the jurisdiction.
The ACNA has recognized the jurisdiction as a “canonical ministry” (although not a diocese) of the church. The Rt. Rev. Phil Ashey of the Diocese of Western Anglicans, who drafted the province’s Canon I.11 regulating the jurisdiction, mentioned in a September 26 diocesan e-newsletter that the jurisdiction is topic to the ACNA bishops, and that Jones is with out authority to separate its chaplains from the ACNA.
The jurisdiction disputes the legitimacy of Canon I.11 and has asserted that the ACNA disadvantaged it of changing into a full diocese, however its claims of longstanding complete independence from the ACNA are new. An amicus temporary filed by the jurisdiction in 2025 referred to as the jurisdiction a “diocese of the ACNA … below the authority of the ACNA,” and Jones mentioned in a 2022 podcast interview that the jurisdiction was “absolutely embedded, absolutely ingrained” into the ACNA by 2014, even because it maintained concurrent membership within the Church of Nigeria at the moment.
From the ACNA’s perspective, regardless of his assertion of separation, Bishop Jones stays an ACNA bishop below the authority of its archbishop and canons, a provincial spokesperson advised TLC. Although Jones stays inhibited from ministry with the consent of 4 senior bishops, no presentment of formal disciplinary costs has been laid in opposition to him to this point.
Since Archbishop Wooden’s administration started in 2024, the ACNA has adopted a de facto coverage of delegating episcopal misconduct complaints to its new Director of Safeguarding and Canonical Affairs, Dr. Tiffany Butler, and its Vice Chancellor for Safeguarding, Jeannie Rose Barksdale. Butler and Barksdale anonymize and cross complaints they deem credible to the archbishop. If the archbishop needs to pursue the grievance formally, he should encourage that ecclesiastical costs be filed by three bishops or ten individuals, as required by canon.
Jones has argued that any investigation earlier than such a submitting is uncanonical. The Most Rev. Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of Rwanda and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council, issued a letter to all GAFCON primates on September 19, urging them to not talk with Jones whereas the ACNA’s investigation proceeds.
The ACNA should file a response in civil court docket to the jurisdiction’s movement for preliminary reduction by October 13. The listening to on the movement is scheduled for October 17.
Arlie Coles is a lay Anglican from the Diocese of Dallas who writes about fashionable Episcopal historical past and polity. She can be a machine-learning researcher serving on Normal Conference’s Job Drive on Synthetic Intelligence and Mental Property.
