Anglican leader sues breakaway rival for defamation

Roys Report ^ | March 7th, 2026 | Daniel Silliman

[Cronos]

Anglican Church in North America acting archbishop Julian Dobbs (left) and leader of the Anglican Catholic Reformed Church Bishop Derek Jones (right).

The interim head of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has filed a defamation suit against the leader of the breakaway Anglican Reformed Catholic Church.

Bishop Julian Dobbs, who was appointed acting archbishop of the ACNA in November while Archbishop Steve Wood is under investigation, says accusations he misappropriated $47,862 are false and malicious.

Dobbs submitted evidence to the U.S. federal court in Northern Alabama showing the disputed sum is actually $3,750. The money was put into the wrong bank account in 2019 but, according to a letter from a certified accountant, properly tracked in the church’s bookkeeping and spent as intended.

Dobbs said that the “many-years-old and previously investigated allegations” were “gratuitously resurfaced” in a Dec. 30, 2025, Washington Post article to destroy his reputation and discredit the ACNA.

He asked the court on Feb. 17 to order Bishop Derek Jones, who announced he was forming a new church “characterized by clear leadership accountability” in December, to pay compensatory and punitive damages.

[Cronos]

I started reading which groups broke from the ECUSA and went down a rabbit hole that leaves more even more confused. the groups are:

- Anglican Church in America (ACA): Formed largely from the continuing movement, emphasizing historic orthodox traditions. - Anglican Catholic Church (ACC): Established during the 1977 Congress of St. Louis, seeking to maintain pre-1970s Anglican faith and practice. - Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK): An offshoot stemming from doctrinal and traditional liturgical disputes - Anglican Province of America (APA): Another prominent traditionalist jurisdiction stemming from the 1970s schisms - Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC): Established in 1992 by conservative traditionalists after attempts to reform the ECUSA failed. - Southern Episcopal Church: Founded earlier (1962) by conservative dissenters primarily in the Southern United States - Anglican Church in North America (ACNA): Established in 2008, this umbrella province serves as a major orthodox alternative to ECUSA. It contains four seceding Episcopal dioceses as well as dozens of regional networks. - Anglican Reformed Catholic Church - a new one from December 2025

I am utterly confused by the latest - "Anglican Reformed Catholic" Church - huh????

[Skwor]

IMO Mega churches and nationally corporatized churches are a big mistake AND not aligned with a biblical model.

Localized community sized churches depending on God’s grace have always typically been more likely to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Scripture does not prescribe a size, big or small my limited understanding of related scripture has always read to me like a more intimate group where the parish is typically well known to each other and the church is not dependent on a large cooperate structure to survive.

IMHO

[Cronos]

Localized community sized churches depending on God’s grace have always typically been more likely to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Yet that demonstrably failed with Congregationalism

Entire local congregations, left to their own governance, voted to abandon traditional doctrines of grace and the Trinity altogether, moving toward Unitarianism

[Skwor]

You misunderstand, I am not talking about independent of theology, I am talking independent of a financial cudgel used to enforce a cooperate leaderships will.

I support a unified body, one that works to keep doctrine true.

The failures you see in localized churches are no less equaled by the failure of an absolute cooperate control which has allowed a corrupted leadership to enforce false doctrine on those lesser parishes.

I spoke not in terms of what is always successful but in an anecdotal experience of my life where those churches which have been closer to the works of God have not been the cookie cutter pattern of a mega church cult or a cooperate forced structure of ritual over grace.

[xxqqzz]

I think the Anglican Churches of North America are a breakaway group from the Episcopal Church. They generally use the 1928 prayer book, similar to the translation / modification of the mass under Edward VI rather than modernized language, and have more conservative approaches to social issues. This other group seems like a breakaway group from them. So these are like schimatics of schismatics of schismatics.

[Cronos]

” I am talking independent of a financial cudgel used to enforce a cooperate leaderships will.”

Ah!! I get you now!

[Cronos]

“So these are like schimatics of schismatics of schismatics.”

The name is weird, right? “Anglican Reformed Catholic”?? Perhaps the next would be “Anglican Reformed Lutheran-Catholic-Evangelical Mennonite” church?

[xxqqzz]

The whole Anglican / Episcopal Church was originally reformed Catholic rather than Protestant, so it sort of makes sense.

[Cronos]

well, it started off that way under Henry 8 who basically wanted the right to chop and change wifey.

But then Oliver Cromwell came and moved the Anglicans firmly into the Calvinist camp

[xxqqzz]

By using the term Reformed Catholic, it implies they are High Church, and take a more Catholic approach. That seems to be what they indicate on their website. Not sure why they fractured from the Anglican Church of North America.

[SharpenedEdge]

I am a member of a wonderful ACNA church which was one of the founding congregations. We are a thriving, growing church of about 250 attendees each Sunday. We have infants, toddlers, 20-somethings fron a nearby religious college, and adults of all ages. It is a wonderfully welcoming, peaceful and active group. We planted a daughter church nearby last year and they are likewise growing and thriving. It will be my church home for the rest of my life.

Anyone knocking Anglican theology should visit an ACNA church and see for yourself what we are all about and what we are doing for our communities. It’s the best church experience I have ever had.

[Jack023]

I’m beginning to think the Catholics are right!

One Church.

One Lord. One Faith. One Baptism. (from Ephesians 4:5)

[Salman]

I spell “Sodomy” with a capital-S because it is the name of a religion.

[PAR35]

My eyebrow twitched at that photo of ‘Bishop’ Jones.

[tinamina]

I was a member of David Schofield’s congregation when he was a priest. Then he went to San Joaquin diocese to be the bishop of the ECUSA there. He was one of the people who took his whole diocese and went under the southern cone, which is South America but eventually they emerged with the ACNA. I eventually found myself in Florida, where there is a wonderful ACNA congregation in my town. I joined them two years ago 10 years ago. Since then they have built a brand new Church and a school that will have students through the 12th grade. Get a good solid Christian education.
I believe the foundation of that church is both spiritually and theologically sound.
Father David told me that the only difference between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church was that the purpose of marriage is the procreation of children in the Catholic Church and not so in the Episcopal tradition which is mutual joy. But it’s all in apostolic succession, except for the Catholic Pope of course

[Jim Noble]

I was raised up in a Congregational church which later joined the UCC, and which now is a synagogue of Satan.

The theory that the congregational model has some type of protection by indwelling of the Holy Ghost which is not present in more, shall we say, organized churches is decisively refuted by the decline of the UCC.

[Jim Noble]

well, it started off that way under Henry 8 who basically wanted the right to chop and change wifey.

But to be fair, the Pope had never refused an annulment to a crowned head of state in Europe before, and his refusal at a time of increasing tension between England, Spain, and France was seen as an intervention in geopolitics rather than a robust defense of the sacrament of matrimony.

[fidelis]

Father David told me that the only difference between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church was that the purpose of marriage is the procreation of children in the Catholic Church and not so in the Episcopal tradition which is mutual joy.

He is wrong on several counts (there are several differences), but particularly on this point. The Catholic Church has long taught that there are two ends of marriage: the procreation of children and raising them in the faith, AND the mutual responsibility of spouses to be a means of sanctification to the other spouse in helping each other toward heaven. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

CCC 1601 "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."

CCC 23631641 "By reason of their state in life and of their order, [Christian spouses] have their own special gifts in the People of God." This grace proper to the sacrament of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple's love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity. By this grace they "help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children.

CCC 2363 "The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family. The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity."

[Cronos]

I just like the joke about Henry 8 and chop and change ;)

[Cronos]

I looked it up and the poem I rememberee wasn’t about the king at all!!!

I’m ‘Enery the Eighth, I am,
‘Enery the Eighth I am, I am!
I got married to the widow next door,
She’s been married seven times before
And every one was an ‘Enery
She wouldn’t have a Willie nor a Sam
I’m her eighth old man named ‘Enery
‘Enery the Eighth, I am!