The new allegation, by a woman identified as “Jane Doe 1,” appears in a revised ecclesiastical complaint — known as a “presentment” — submitted to the denomination on Thursday. The statement does not identify the location or time period of the alleged incidents.
“I have a complaint against Archbishop Steve Wood of sexual misconduct, in the form of sexual harassment, to include pressuring me to be in situations I was uncomfortable with, even after I expressed my discomfort, pressuring me to be in a private space with him, one-on-one, to drink alcohol with him, despite me saying it was inappropriate and that I was uncomfortable,” the woman wrote in the presentment. “I do not wish to go into further detail now for fear of being identified.”
Wood, 62, a married father of four, has been the Anglican Church in North America’s most powerful figure since summer 2024, when he was elected as its third archbishop. But on Oct. 20, a group of Anglican priests and parishioners in South Carolina submitted a presentment accusing him of three canonical offenses: sexual immorality, bringing “scandal” to the church and violating his ordination vows.
As first reported by The Washington Post, the chief allegation in the original complaint stems from an alleged incident last year at St. Andrew’s Church in the Charleston area of South Carolina, where Wood was the longtime rector until this week.
In April 2024, just two months before his election as archbishop, Wood allegedly tried to kiss Claire Buxton, who at the time was the church’s children’s ministry director. According to the presentment, he placed his hand on the back of her head and tried to turn her head toward his for a kiss.
Buxton also accused Wood of giving her multiple unexpected payments totaling thousands of dollars from church coffers. The presentment and its affidavits also allege that Wood bullied and disparaged colleagues and plagiarized sermons. Wood has denied the allegations.
Now, the South Carolina group has amended its complaint to include Jane Doe 1’s statement.
The group also supplemented the presentment with a lengthy affidavit by the denomination’s longtime former communications director, who accused Wood of habitual attempts to “deceive and manipulate leaders and staff.”
If the denomination calls for an ecclesiastical trial, a guilty verdict could result in Wood’s defrocking.
The Post emailed Wood specific questions about the allegations in the revised presentment, but he declined to comment.
“I have made very clear that I am fully submitted to the ACNA’s canonical process,” he wrote. “There are strict confidentiality requirements that protect all individuals no matter which side they may be on in this process. At the appropriate time, I will make a robust response.”
Meanwhile, the church announced on Monday night that Wood was taking a voluntary paid leave of absence from his duties as archbishop and bishop of a diocese of more than 40 churches across the South. Wood also shared that he was retiring as rector of St. Andrew’s Church. He held the job for 25 years and described the decision as “previously planned.”
“The problem is that Wood decided to take the leave of absence and can come back in whenever he wants. He had no limits placed on him whatsoever — no church order has been given to restrict his interaction with victims and witnesses,” said the Rev. Drew Miller, an Anglican priest in South Carolina who wrote one of the presentment’s affidavits accusing Wood of abusive behavior. “The fact that Wood hasn’t been inhibited [suspended] is staggering — it’s a betrayal of the responsibility of the bishops to protect their flock.”
The allegations against Wood have sent the young denomination into turmoil, as numerous bishops and rectors have been sending out mass emails trying to reassure them that misconduct accusations against leaders are taken seriously.
“It seems that crisis after crisis is threatening to destroy the Anglican Church in North America. Many of us are nauseated by it all,” wrote Bishop Jacob Worley, who leads a diocese of Anglican churches in the Pacific Northwest. “We are at the very least concerned, if not frightened at what the future may hold. Some of us are concerned with being affiliated with the ACNA.”
The Anglican Church in North America, which counts more than 128,000 members and 1,000 congregations, was founded in 2009 by theological conservatives who split from the Episcopal Church over its confirmation in 2003 of an openly gay bishop. The church condemns same-sex relationships as a sin, opposes abortion and bars women from becoming bishops or the archbishop.
In recent years, the denomination has been grappling with a number of accusations made against senior leaders. A Chicago-area bishop, Stewart Ruch III, is awaiting a verdict in an ecclesiastical trial in which he stands accused of permitting men with troubling histories, some with serious criminal convictions, to worship or assume staff, leadership or other roles in his diocese.
Last year, an Anglican bishop was defrocked after a church court found that he had sent 11,000 text messages to a married woman.
Now, Wood may become the denomination’s first archbishop to face an ecclesiastical trial.
“While I grieve that anyone experiences harm in the Church, as I have noted to my parish, I believe the charges against me lack merit, and I categorically and emphatically deny the particular accusation of attempted physical contact made against me by a former St. Andrew’s employee,” Wood wrote on Monday. “The ACNA has a canonical process in place for holding all of its leaders accountable to discipline when warranted, and I am fully committed to this process, trusting that the truth will come to light in due course.”
In the revised complaint, Jane Doe 1’s statement is supplemented by terms stating that she will “cooperate with official proceedings and investigations” if the denomination can guarantee her anonymity. The woman declined an interview request through one of the priests who helped write the complaint.
Beyond Jane Doe 1’s allegation, the revised presentment includes extensive allegations by Andrew Gross, an ordained priest who served as the denomination’s communications director from 2013 until this year.
In his eight-page affidavit, Gross wrote that when Wood was elected archbishop, he grew “obsessive” about a possible presentment, “speculating about what accusations he thought would come against him.” Gross and other staffers had “to encourage him to refocus” on his duties.
By fall 2024, the account alleges, Wood had grown fixated on the Rev. Rob Sturdy, an Anglican priest who serves students at The Citadel and whom Wood had “regularly disparaged.” When Wood learned that Sturdy had concerns about his leadership, he minimized them as overblown, Gross wrote in his affidavit and told The Post.
A sabbatical, Wood proposed, might allow Sturdy to see that his concerns weren’t significant.
Wood then shared with Gross that he had told a bishop “he would secretly contribute $10,000 to the cost of [Sturdy’s] sabbatical” if the bishop could persuade Sturdy to take it, Gross wrote.
“He clearly wanted Sturdy sidelined,” Gross told The Post.
Sturdy said in an interview that neither Wood nor his bishop ever approached him with such an offer that year.
Wood’s fear of a presentment led him to what Gross considered a major ethical breach. While he was on staff, Gross said, he heard a “credible report” that Wood and Ray Sutton — the bishop assuming the archbishop’s duties during Wood’s leave of absence — had a conversation about a possible presentment.
In their discussion, they were “floating the possibility” of a “bishop-friendly” Board of Inquiry, according to Gross’s affidavit. Gross told The Post that he was appalled. He said he believed they were considering stacking a future Board of Inquiry with clergy and parishioners inherently deferential to the church’s senior leadership.
“The fact that these conversations took place escalates the presentment against the Archbishop from being ‘merely’ a moment of unprecedented crisis that the canons can handle to a constitutional and moral crisis for which there is no canonical roadmap and which threatens the integrity and future of the Anglican Church in North America,” Gross wrote.
Asked about Gross’s accusation, Sutton said in a statement to The Post: “I firmly deny that any such conversation ever occurred.”
In another incident in fall 2024, Gross said he was briefing Wood on misconduct allegations against various bishops when the archbishop cut him off. “I had covered just a few of the bishops on my list when he said, ‘Stop there. I don’t want to know anything else,’” Gross recounted in his affidavit.
In recent days, multiple Anglican bishops and rectors have released statements assuring parishioners that the denomination treats accusations against its leaders with rigor and urgency.
“That this presentment was sent to the Washington Post is disheartening because, as the article insinuates, there is the expectation by some that the College of Bishops will not seek to do the right thing in this matter,” Bishop Chris Warner wrote in an Oct. 23 email to clergy. “That said, I’m confident that the ACNA is taking this seriously … and does not hesitate to take action when action is warranted.”
But the South Carolina group of priests and former church staff behind the presentment say their complaint was met with hesitation and pushback.
Church canons require a presentment to have signed endorsements from three bishops or a mix of 10 priests and parishioners.
In a cover letter to the amended presentment, the group wrote that when it approached a bishop in November 2024, he refused to sign, but he proposed a work-around. He wanted to exploit a church canon that allows bishops or an archbishop to investigate rumors maligning their reputations.
Under this plan, Wood would be alerted to the rumors. If investigators confirmed them, the disciplinary process could go forward. The group behind the presentment was offended by the plan and declined, according to the letter and interviews with its authors.
By spring 2025, the presentment was offered to four bishops, but two declined to even read it, according to Miller, the lead organizer of the group that wrote it. In the end, all four bishops declined to sign it.
Eventually, the group secured signatures from a group of 11 priests and parishioners.
“The complaint of a vulnerable woman should not hinge upon whether or not a bishop can navigate the canons,” the presentment’s authors wrote. “She should not have had to recruit ten strangers to be taken seriously.”