Falls Church Abuse Case: A Crime That Predates ACNA

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

September 18, 2026

Sex scandals are not the exclusive property of The Episcopal Church, though barely a month passes without another priest or bishop dragging that failing denomination into the headlines. Orthodox jurisdictions have their share of shame too, and honesty requires saying so plainly.

The latest erupts at the flagship parish of the Anglican Church in North America — The Falls Church Anglican in Falls Church, Virginia.

What the FBI Alleges

On September 15 the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of Jeffrey Turner Taylor, 66, now of Milford, Ohio, on federal charges of enticing minors for illegal sexual activity and traveling with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity with minors. According to court documents, Taylor served as a youth minister at The Falls Church from 1990 to 2002, where he allegedly groomed and molested multiple boys under the guise of spiritual mentorship — sexual “horseplay,” probing questions about the boys’ private habits, and lurid disclosures about his own. He is said to have taken boys to ministry events in other states and abroad with the intent to abuse them. Investigators trace his alleged grooming and abuse from at least 1990 through 2008, including at two churches in Atlanta. If convicted, he faces up to 105 years in prison. Arraignment is set for September 24 in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The crimes are monstrous, and no jurisdictional footnote lessens the debt owed to the men who were boys when Taylor is accused of preying on them.

An Episcopal Parish, Not an Anglican One

But here is the fact that not a single report has bothered to note: when these crimes occurred, The Falls Church was not an Anglican parish at all. It was an Episcopal one.

Taylor’s tenure ran from 1990 to 2002. The Falls Church did not vote to leave The Episcopal Church until December 2006 — more than four years after he left its staff. Throughout the years he is accused of abusing children, the parish sat squarely under the oversight of The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. The bishop to whom that parish answered was an Episcopal bishop. The canons that governed it were Episcopal canons. The supervisory failure, if failure there was, was an Episcopal failure.

The Falls Church Anglican did not yet exist. Neither did ACNA, which would not be founded until 2009.

This is not special pleading; it is the plain record. ACNA cannot be held to account for sins committed inside a denomination it had not yet left, in years before it drew its first breath. To file this scandal under “ACNA” is to get the story exactly backward.

A Church That Named Its Own Sin

To its credit, The Falls Church Anglican has not hidden behind that fact. Three years ago the parish opened its own investigation into the allegations against Taylor. It turned over what it found to law enforcement and cooperated with the FBI, and it continues, its wardens say, to provide confidential care to those who were harmed while praying for truth, for the healing of victims, and for justice. That is precisely what a church is supposed to do when the rot is uncovered — expose it, report it, and tend the wounded — whether or not the wound was inflicted on its own watch.

Where the Accountability Belongs

The harder question is one no one seems eager to ask. The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia held oversight of The Falls Church through every year Taylor is accused of preying on its children. What does the diocese that owned this parish then have to say now?

Let the record show where the accountability belongs. And let the honest reader mark the difference between a body that drags the truth into the light and one that has too often perfected the art of looking away.

David W. Virtue, DD, is founder and managing editor of VirtueOnline. His writings can be found at www.virtueonline.org, where you can subscribe to receive his free biweekly VIEWPOINTS. His Substack on the Middle East is at davidvirtue2.substack.com.