The Major Step Towards Anglican Unity

At the first day of this year’s joint synod Wednesday, delegates from both the Anglican Catholic Church and the Anglican Church in America voted to implement their proposed merger plan, a merger that takes effect immediately. The former ACA parishes and dioceses are now all part of the ACC, and the residual legal entities of the ACA are in the process of being dissolved.

The original G-4 (ACA, ACC, APA), later the G-3 (ACA, ACC, APA) have now become the G-2 (ACC, APA). This is the most important merger of the Continuing Anglican movement in the past 35 years, jumping closer towards the original 1978 vision of a single national province for Continuing Anglicans in the U.S.

The 11 US Dioceses of the ACC (Soon to be 10)

The American parishes of the ACC were (and are) entirely with the “Original Province” of the ACC. The ACC voted to amend the “Original Province” Canons and Statutes to add the four ACA dioceses. The resulting ACC diocesan structure is as follows:

Region	Diocese	Parishes	Locations
Northeast	Diocese of the Northeast (DNE)	23	CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, VT
Northeast	Diocese of the Resurrection	4	CT, NH, NY, PA
East Coast	Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic States (DMAS)	16	DE, MD, VA
East Coast	Diocese of the Eastern United States (DEUS)†	10	FL, GA, LA, NC, MD, MS, PA
East Coast	Diocese of the South	23	FL, GA, NC
Mainly Southeast	Diocese of the Holy Cross (DHC)	20	AL, CO, CT, GA, MA, MI, NC, PA, SC, TX, VA
South	Diocese of the New Orleans (DNO)	11	AL, FL, LA, MS, TN, TX
Midwest	Diocese of the Midwest (DMW)	8	IN, KY, OH, WI
Mainly Midwest	Diocese of the Missouri Valley (DMV)	16	CO, IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, TX
West	Diocese of the Holy Trinity (DHT)	6	CA, CO
West	Diocese of the West (DOW)†	12	AZ, CA, MT, NM, OR, WA, WY

Abp. Haverland

ACA dioceses shown in italics;

† Parishes in these two dioceses must join (or form) a permanent diocese before each diocese is dissolved at the end of 2030

The two northeastern dioceses are in process of merging, led by the bishop of the Northeast. Abp. Haverland said that other overlapping dioceses have a ranges of alternatives, including voluntarily merging, or creating one (or more) new purely geographic diocese(s).

Who’s in the G-2?

The 2025 Anglican Joint Synods Annual provides a complete directory of G-3 parishes and dioceses. These are the totals reported in the annual:

• ACC: 88 congregations, 7 dioceses

• ACA: 66 congregations, 4 dioceses

• APA: 36 congregations, 2 dioceses

The same database used to create the Annual was also used to create a map of all the G-2 parishes.

Future Possibilities for Unity

Bp. Haines addresses the ACC delegates

What other groups might possibly unify with the ACC (or vice versa)?

• APA. Abp. Chad Jones did not attend the synod (because he was attending a Board of Visitors meeting at Nashotah). Instead, the APA was represented by Bp. David Haines, one of the three active (and one retired) bishops in the APA. Since 2017, the APA has been in full communion with the other three provinces — all now in the ACC. However, Bp. Haines said there are a number of issues that need to be worked out before an APA-ACC merger would be is possible

• APCK. The Anglican Province of Christ the King (not represented this week) is also in communion with the ACC. However, Abp. Haverland says the APCK leadership seems in no hurry to pursue a merger, even if there is interest by some rank-and-file clergy.

• PNCC. The negotiations with the Polish National Catholic Church appear to be the furthest along. The PNCC once had full intercommunion with the Episcopal Church, which ended in 1978 due to TEC’s ordination of women, and has participated in previous Anglican Joint Synods.