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 commercial competition.
The lawsuit was filed on October 6 in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina.
“ACNA has flatly disregarded Plaintiff’s warnings and has continued to appropriate Plaintiff’s protected marks, usurp Plaintiff’s ecclesiastical and commercial identity, and disparage Plaintiff and its leadership,” the lawsuit says.
The jurisdiction seeks to recover damages of at least $1 million, and potentially as high as $2 million for unauthorized use of the term [Special] Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy, the term Anglican Chaplains, or the logo of the jurisdiction.
The filing represents a further escalation in a conflict between the jurisdiction and the ACNA that publicly erupted in late September after the archbishop of the denomination, the Most Rev. Steve Wood, inhibited Bishop Jones from ministry pending an investigation into allegations against Jones of misconduct.
When the jurisdiction announced separation from the ACNA in response, the church’s College of Bishops declared Jones’ seat vacant three days later and elected the Rt. Rev. Jerome Cayangyang, his former suffragan, into his place for continued “leadership, pastoral care, and oversight” of ACNA chaplains.
The jurisdiction’s lawyers frame the jurisdiction not as a canonical structure of the ACNA, but as a business that offers chaplain endorsements as a service. Through its communications about the controversy and its assumption of the jurisdiction’s name and chaplain-endorsing functions, they argue, the ACNA has confused government agencies, chaplains, and the public, engaging in unfair competition, cutting into the jurisdiction’s revenue, and causing “irreparable harm” to the jurisdiction’s “business reputation and goodwill.”
The lawsuit claims that since Jones’ inhibition, the jurisdiction has lost half its income, half its chaplains, a fifth of its staff, and two-thirds of its missions, chapels, and parishes, since many chaplains have chosen not to follow the jurisdiction’s disaffiliation from the ACNA.
“Because of the ACNA’s actions, [the jurisdiction] is a mere shell of what it was just over two weeks ago,” wrote David van Esselstyn, chairman of the jurisdiction’s board, in a request for injunctive relief from the civil court. “It is barely alive as an organization.”
‘Heavy-Handed and Vindictive’
Some chaplains currently and formerly associated with the jurisdiction hold that the damage to its good name has been caused not by the ACNA but by Bishop Jones. At least 18 complaints against Jones formed the basis of his initial inhibition from ministry, all centering on alleged misuses of ecclesiastical disciplinary processes that several have described as “heavy-handed” and “vindictive.”
Multiple chaplains, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, told The Living Church that Jones has habitually threatened canonical residents who miss tithe payments to the jurisdiction. Threats include loss of endorsement—the attestation required by the Department of War, without which a chaplain will lose a military job in 30 days—as well as ecclesiastical discipline, including deposition from the priesthood.
A copy of the jurisdiction’s canons obtained by TLC shows a centralization of financial control in the bishop that is uncommon in ACNA dioceses. Under the canons, the bishop possesses “general authority and responsibility for budgetary and fiscal management” and creates accounting regulations subject to the approval of an executive committee appointed by the bishop.
The canons also introduce a special definition of Good Standing that requires member chaplains to tithe directly to the jurisdiction or face discipline. Chaplains must certify their Good Standing annually—including their compliance with the bishop’s tithing policy, which requires a 10 percent payment from full-time, part-time, and bivocational chaplains, as well as from volunteer chaplains without tithing obligations from other churches.
The jurisdiction’s latest annual income of $1.2 million stemmed “mainly from the gifts and tithes of its membership,” according to the lawsuit. “The tithes are how Jones funds his organization,” one chaplain told TLC, alleging that Jones has habitually chastised and shamed chaplains in hardship for their inability to pay. “We are his money pot.”
Chaplains can also lose Good Standing for attempting to plan a transfer out of the jurisdiction. Seeking a change in endorser is uncontroversial among military chaplains in general, one chaplain said, but even speaking to other endorsers has triggered threats of endorsement removal and disciplinary action by Jones. Another chaplain said that Jones has similarly harassed those seeking transfer out of chaplaincy entirely and into local ACNA dioceses.
According to the Good Standing regulations, chaplains may not “ma[ke] inquiry or contact to work with any other ecclesiastical authority without the knowledge of the Bishop.” The canons further specify that “any transfer of endorsement to another endorsing authority or agency will include release from or termination of Holy Orders.”
“I have never held onto anybody that didn’t want to be here,” Jones said in an hour-long video meeting September 22 in which he denied allegations of wrongful use of disciplinary processes and interference with outside employment opportunities. Chaplains who spoke with TLC disagreed, citing their experiences of a “controlling environment” from which it was impossible to “bow out peacefully” without having their livelihoods threatened.
‘Independent Entity’ or ‘Canonical Ministry’?
If the use of Bishop Jones’ canons are at the heart of the jurisdiction’s internal conflict, the use of the ACNA’s provincial canons is at the heart of its external conflict. Core to the jurisdiction’s request for civil damages is its claim to be an “independent ecclesiastical entity” whose canonical membership in the ACNA was “never finalized.” Its lawyers now argue that this prevents the ACNA from claiming the endorsement power the jurisdiction exercised on its behalf and realizing the “economic gains” associated with that power.
A September 29 jurisdiction press release similarly claims that “the ACNA is not currently, nor has it ever been, an authorized endorser” with the Department of War, and that the jurisdiction was the true endorser all along. Authorized endorsing agent rosters maintained by the Department of War’s Armed Forces Chaplains Board and the Department of Veterans Affairs list the Anglican Church in North America among their endorsers, rather than the jurisdiction.
The ACNA has identified the jurisdiction as a “canonical ministry” (though 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, said in a September 26 diocesan newsletter that the jurisdiction is subject to the ACNA bishops, and that Jones is without authority to separate its chaplains from the ACNA.
The jurisdiction disputes the legitimacy of Canon I.11 and has asserted that the ACNA deprived it of becoming a full diocese, but its claims of longstanding total independence from the ACNA are new. An amicus brief filed by the jurisdiction in 2025 called the jurisdiction a “diocese of the ACNA … under the authority of the ACNA,” and Jones said in a 2022 podcast interview that the jurisdiction was “fully embedded, fully ingrained” into the ACNA by 2014, even as it maintained concurrent membership in the Church of Nigeria at that time.
From the ACNA’s perspective, despite his statement of separation, Bishop Jones remains an ACNA bishop under the authority of its archbishop and canons, a provincial spokesperson told TLC. Though Jones remains inhibited from ministry with the consent of four senior bishops, no presentment of formal disciplinary charges has been laid against him to date.
Since Archbishop Wood’s administration began in 2024, the ACNA has adopted a de facto policy 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 pass complaints they deem credible to the archbishop. If the archbishop wishes to pursue the complaint formally, he must encourage that ecclesiastical charges be filed by three bishops or ten people, as required by canon.
Jones has argued that any investigation before such a filing 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 not to communicate with Jones while the ACNA’s investigation proceeds.
The ACNA must file a response in civil court to the jurisdiction’s motion for initial relief by October 13. The hearing on the motion is scheduled for October 17.
Arlie Coles is a lay Anglican from the Diocese of Dallas who writes about modern Episcopal history and polity. She is also a machine-learning researcher serving on General Convention’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property.
