Missionary Diocese of Australia

The Missionary Diocese of Australia and New Zealand is a diocese of the Anglican Catholic Church (Original Province). In June 2010 the diocese is due to have its 18th annual synod. The bishop ordinary is the Right Reverend Brian Iverach and the suffragan bishop is the Right Reverend Denis Hodge, who is based in New Zealand. The diocese has parishes or missions in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand. The Pro-Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin is in Sydney, currently in temporary quarters. The diocese is seeking to acquire the former Coptic Orthodox Church of Saints Mary & Mina, now owned by the Marrickville Council.

The diocese also has a social welfare arm, ACCOSS (Anglican Catholic Church Outreach Support Services), with outreach missions in Sydney and Brisbane. Religious life is represented by Franciscan friars and Benedictine monks and oblates or tertiaries. Ordinands are trained by distance education from Saints Peter and Paul Seminary in the Anglican Catholic Church's Second Province in India.

The retired former primate of the 1st Province of the Anglican Catholic Church, the Most Reverend Brother John Charles FODC, a Franciscan friar and former Anglican Bishop of Polynesia, lives in retirement in the Maitland parish. In January 2010 the metropolitan archbishop of the Original or First Province, the Most Reverend Mark Haverland, made a Visitation of the Diocese, meeting priests and faithful, preaching and celebrating mass.

Following the release of the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus by the Vatican, setting the rules for the establishment of ordinariate for former Anglicans being received into the Roman Catholic Church, Archbishop Haverland released a response, which welcomed the aspiration for church unity, but firmly stated that the Anglican Catholic Church is already part of the Holy Catholic Church, along with the Eastern Orthodox. With apostolic succession maintaining the sacred priesthood, adherence to the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the Anglican Catholic Church has firmly stated its claim for catholicity and the principal repository of Anglican orthodoxy.^{[citation needed]}

The Anglican Catholic Church (Original Province) is separate to the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) of Archbishop John Hepworth which has been a very vocal advocate and initiator of dialogue with the Vatican and whose Australian diocese intends to join the ordinariate.^{[citation needed]}

The outreach of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and New Zealand is Christ-centred evangelism, sharing the Catholic faith as lived by Anglicans. The diocese uses the traditional Book of Common Prayer and missal, keeps the fasts and calendar of the prayer book and uses the Authorized (King James) Bible in liturgical worship. Outreach is not only to cradle Anglicans but to those who do not know the Catholic faith or are Christians.