The Uniting Church has issued a stinging rebuke to the board of elite Melbourne school Methodist Ladies’ College and demanded an apology for its behaviour. The church has sought to intervene in the board’s sacking of MLC principal Rosa Storelli earlier this month, but the board has launched court action challenging the church’s authority.

In a statement on Friday, Uniting Church moderator Isabel Thomas Dobson said she was “dismayed" the board issued a press release the day before in “deliberate defiance" of her directions in the dispute.