Father Sammy Wood did his undergraduate work at Mississippi State before completing law school at the University of Mississippi. After graduation, he clerked for a United States Magistrate Judge. In 2000, he and his wife Reneé moved to New England and Father Sammy received his Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

After discovering the Episcopal Church and being confirmed while at Gordon-Conwell, he received his post-graduate Diploma in Anglican Studies from Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. He was ordained a deacon in the Diocese of Massachusetts in June 2007 and a priest at the Church of the Ascension & St. Agnes in Washington, DC, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in December 2007. He was curate at Ascension & St. Agnes from 2007 to 2009 before going to the Church of the Advent in Boston, Massachusetts in October 2009 where he served for eight years as assistant to the rector and associate rector. He was called as rector of the Church of Saint Bartholomew in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2017.

Father Sammy and his wife Renee were both raised in Mississippi. While in Nashville, Renee worked as Senior Director of Finance and Administration at the not-for-profit Thistle Farms and is currently the Chief Financial and Administrative Officer for the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. The Woods have three children, Elizabeth, Patrick, and Flannery.

Father Wood joined Saint Mary’s as our interim rector in 2022 and was appointed priest-in-charge in 2023. He was called as the tenth rector of the parish in 2026.

Father Matt Jacobson began at Saint Mary's in 2015 as a seminarian intern while studying at the General Theological Seminary, where he graduated from in 2017, and since then has served at the parish in several roles. He was ordained to the diaconate in March 2017 and the priesthood in September 2017.

From 2019-2021, he was also the assistant director, and for a time acting director, of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at the General Theological Seminary. Father Matt served for several years on the advisory board for the New York Service and Justice Collaborative, the Diocese of New York’s Episcopal Service Corps program, and is currently on the advisory board of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine’s Community at the Crossing. He also serves on the board of trustees for the American Friends of the Anglican Centre in Rome and is a member of the North American Patristics Society.

He earned a B.A. in biology at Swarthmore College and an M.D. at the Stony Brook School of Medicine. In addition to his background in medicine, Father Matt trained in hospital chaplaincy at the Mount Sinai Hospital. Prior to going to seminary, he worked at the Rockefeller University, the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell, and was an institutional investor with several funds in the New York City area.

Father Matt was born in Bologna, Italy, and speaks Italian, in addition to English. He and his wife Meredith, an archeologist on the faculty at Bard Graduate Center, live in the Upper West Side.

Mother Elis Lui joined Saint Mary’s as Curate in July 2026. Born in British Hong Kong, she grew up in Chinese Baptist churches in the Tampa Bay Area. She joined the Episcopal Church while studying religion at New College of Florida. After completing her undergraduate studies at Florida State University, she spent a year as an intern of the Community of Saint Mary, Southern Province, working and praying alongside the Episcopal order of Benedictine nuns in Sewanee, Tennessee. She served as the Youth Minister at Christ Church Bronxville in Lower Westchester County for five years before entering seminary at the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.

A classicist by training, she brings experience teaching in secular and religious contexts, editing poetry and creative non-fiction, and a penchant for ancient and modern languages. She has also served as a member of the Christian Formation Commission, Global Mission Commission, and the planning team of EAST: Episcopal Asian Supper Table in this diocese. She is currently a Forward Movement board member and a Friends of Sabeel North America trustee. 

A proud immigrant, lifelong Southerner, and New York transplant, she is delighted to be returning home. Mother Elis is excited to get to know, love, and serve the neighborhood, along with her church cat Astrid. She was ordained to the diaconate in February 2026. God willing and the people consenting, she will be ordained to the priesthood on September 12, 2026, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.

Father Spencer Cantrell is the rector of Saint George’s Church in Astoria, Queens in the Diocese of Long Island. He previously served as curate/associate rector of All Saints’ Park Slope, Brooklyn after completing a clinical residency in pastoral care at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy/Religion from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and an M.Div. from the General Theological Seminary. He is currently a D.Min. candidate at the School of Theology at the University of the South (Sewanee) and is an instructor at the George Mercer, Jr. Memorial School of Theology. He is an active member of the Sodality of Mary, Mother of Priests.

Father Stephen Morris has a B.A. in medieval history and theology from Yale and an M.Div from Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Academy, as well as an M.S. in special education from Hunter College. Ordained an Orthodox priest in 1984, he served as priest-in-charge of a Manhattan parish while finishing seminary. After graduation, he served as the Eastern Orthodox chaplain at Columbia University and founded a parish on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The parish he founded was instrumental in raising the funds necessary to reopen the Orthodox seminary in Minsk following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has written urban fantasy novels as well as academic studies which deal primarily with Late Antiquity and Byzantine church life. As a parish-founder, he was also a “tent-maker priest,” teaching Special Education (severe-profound/multiple disabilities) in District 75 of the NYC Department of Education for 27+ years. For more than a decade he co-organized a series of international interdisciplinary conferences on various aspects of evil, wickedness, monsters, mythology, and the supernatural. Leaving parish ministry after “coming out,” Father Stephen was accepted as a priest in the Episcopal Church in May 2022 and has served parishes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Father Stephen, a Seattle native, is now a long-time New York resident. Father of two adult children and grandfather of three teenagers, he currently lives in Manhattan with his partner, Elliot. Please see Father Stephen's website for more information on upcoming writing projects and his most recent blog posts.

Dr. David Hurd is a native New Yorker and has studied at the Juilliard School, the High School of Music and Art, and the Manhattan School of Music. His undergraduate music degree is from Oberlin College, and he continued his studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.   Subsequently he has received honorary degrees from four other academic institutions. From 1976 until 2015, he was on the faculty of The General Theological Seminary, having been named Professor of Church Music and Organist there in 1984. He has taught also at Duke University, Manhattan School of Music, Westminster Choir College, and Yale University. A lifelong Episcopalian, he served on the Standing Commission on Church Music from 1977 to 1986 and was a major contributor to The Hymnal 1982.

Since winning first prizes both in organ performance and in improvisation at the 1977 International Congress of Organists, he has performed extensively throughout North America and Europe, and has been a featured artist at several national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. 

His catalogue of published musical compositions features choral, vocal, liturgical, and organ works, and includes a collection of seventy-seven original hymn settings. In 2010 he became the fifteenth recipient of The American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer Award. 

He was appointed Organist and Music Director of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in 2016 having previously served in New York at Trinity Church Wall Street (and Saint Paul’s Chapel), The Church of the Intercession, Saint James Church, All Saints Church, and Church of the Holy Apostles. 

A native of Vacaville, California, Mr. Alan Montgomery is the Project Director for Casavant Frères, a pipe organ builder based in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, overseeing construction of new organs and renovation of historic instruments throughout the United States. Before starting at Casavant Frères, he served as the Associate Organist and Interim Director of Music at the Riverside Church, where he was responsible for the administration of one of the most extensive music programs in New York.

Alan is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he earned a Master of Music degree while studying with Paul Jacobs. He also holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) degree from the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied with David Graham and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin. While in London, he served as Organ Scholar of Saint Mark’s, Hamilton Terrace and Farm Street Church.

As Artist in Residence, Alan supports Dr. Hurd in creating the musical tapestry for our parish’s rich Anglo-Catholic liturgical life, substituting or assisting at times, as well as playing recitals, concerts and special events.