Darryl Fitzwater

After high school, Darryl attended a traditional Pentecostal bible school, was ordained in his Pentecostal denomination, and stepped into a senior pastorate after graduation. He began to notice that his theological education caused him to encounter unfamiliar terms and written prayers he had not previously read. Knowing that Wesley was an Anglican priest influenced by the church fathers, he began to wrestle with some historical church stances that did not agree with those of his current denomination. “In my own soul, that wrestling was working out a lot of stuff,” Darryl says. “That was part of my desire for a Master of Divinity.”

He began his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) program at Asbury Seminary intending to plant a church. Eventually, he was pursuing his studies while working bi-vocationally as a pastor and in management at United Airlines.

Seminary and the Draw to Anglicanism

While taking classes and pastoring, Darryl gained more understanding of topics like apostolic succession and became more influenced by liturgy. He even began to envision planting a liturgical Pentecostal church. A major inflection point came when he visited a charismatic Anglican parish not far from his home. At the Sunday morning service, he witnessed a traditional Anglican service with the power and presence of his Pentecostal background. “I’m sitting there, and here are these guys in their white robes and their candles,” Darryl says. “I don’t know what it is, but the singing was lively, the preaching was clear and gospel focused, and then there were healings that began to take place in the service.”

Witnessing this and partaking in the Eucharist, Darryl’s wrestling with church fathers came full circle. “The whole thing was there in front of me, and I’m like, this is the history of the church,” Darryl says.

After speaking with his spiritual authorities, he began to move in the direction of planting an Anglican church. There was not yet an Anglican Studies track of the M.Div. program, but Darryl focused his studies in areas that were significant for his new denominational direction. He cites Dr. Ken Collins’s class on the English Reformation and Dr. Steve Seamands’s courses on the work of the Holy Spirit as especially influential. “There [was] lots of good stuff, but the things that really got me that I was utterly ignorant of were the things on the sacraments,” Darryl says.

Pastoring and Church Planting

For his last few months at Asbury Seminary, Darryl served at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Versailles. He had a few offers to plant churches in various locations, but he and his family ended up returning to a parish in Northern Virginia. This church, at which he was made a deacon and then ordained a priest, became the mother congregation for the church Darryl planted in West Virginia in 2018, where he now serves as rector. “Watching what the Lord’s done here in this corner of West Virginia—ethnically diverse, heavy missions emphasis, all the things that you’d love to see—I praise God for it,” Darryl says. “We’ve mothered one other congregation in Southern Pennsylvania… we’ve got a plan to continue to multiply more churches.”

A New Chapter: Episcopal Leadership and Vision for the Future

In August 2023, Darryl was nominated to be a candidate for bishop coadjutor, an appointed assistant and successor to a bishop ordinary, for the Missionary Diocese of All Saints. Though he was initially reluctant, he felt the Lord lead him to let his name go forward for consideration. He was ultimately elected in April 2024 and consecrated as bishop on October 4, 2024, the feast day of St. Francis. Then, recently on March 21, 2025, the feast day of Thomas Cranmer, he became the Bishop Ordinary.

The Missionary Diocese of All Saints is an Anglo-Catholic, non-geographic diocese committed to embracing the Gospel of Jesus Christ while upholding both the evangelical faith and the Catholic Order. The diocese, like Darryl’s church, is committed to church planting and missions efforts while maintaining a sense of connection to the ancient universal church. “So we have a lot of charismatic Catholics, a lot of evangelical-style [churches],” Darryl says. “We’re all high church to some extent, but there are some minor church leadership differences within that.”

The days are very early regarding Darryl’s ministry and his tenure as bishop ordinary. Looking to the future, he envisions producing more clergy and planting more churches to continue to spread the apostolic faith. “I look at creating, raising up, developing more clergy, more churches, and ministry that preaches the gospel, [that is] after those people who preach have sat at the feet of the church fathers.”