Parish Clergy

The Reverend Sammy Wood, priest-in-charge

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.

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The Reverend James Ross Smith, associate rector

Father Jay Smith was born in North Tonawanda, New York, and was raised there, along with his four brothers, as a Roman Catholic. He attended a parochial school in his hometown and then studied with the Jesuits at Canisius High School in nearby Buffalo. After graduating from Canisius in 1969, he attended Cornell University (A.B., 1973; M.F.A., 1977) in Ithaca, New York, where he studied American history and theater arts. He moved to New York City in 1977 and worked briefly in the theater as an actor and stage manager. He was the editor of Stagebill magazine at Lincoln Center between 1980 and 1982.

He was received into the Episcopal Church in 1983. He attended Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (M.Div., 1987) and the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale (S.T.M. and Certificate in Anglican Studies, 1989). He also did graduate work in the history of Ancient Christianity in Yale’s Department of Religious Studies between 1989 and 1992 and was awarded the M.Phil. degree by Yale in 1993.

While at Union, Father Smith did internships at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Manhattan’s East Side. He was ordained deacon in June 1989 at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, where, six months later, he was ordained priest. He worked as an assisting priest at Christ Church, New Haven, between 1989 and 1996, while doing graduate work at the university.

Father Smith was first associated with Saint Mary’s beginning in 1997, serving here as an assisting priest. He was the half-time assistant between September 2000 and the fall of 2003. He joined the parish staff as curate in November 2007.

Father Smith met his husband, José Vidal, in 1980. José is an architect, interior designer, and curator. Here at the parish, he has, at various times, designed altar flowers, managed the Gift Shop, organized and hosted feast-day receptions, and volunteered for Neighbors in Need, an outreach program he helped to create. Along with Father John Beddingfield and Erwin DeLeon he created Saint Mary’s arts program and later founded the Gallery at Saint Mary’s. He and Father Smith were married in December 2017.

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The Reverend Dr. Matt Jacobson, assistant to the rector

Father Matthew Jacobson began serving at Saint Mary's in 2015 as a seminarian while studying at the General Theological Seminary, where he graduated from in 2017. He was ordained to the priesthood in September 2017 and since then has been at the parish, initially as an assisting priest, and then as the assistant to the rector.

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 Jacobson 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 currently serves on the advisory board for the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine’s Community at the Crossing.

He earned a BA in biology at Swarthmore College and an MD at the Stony Brook School of Medicine. In addition to his background in medicine, Father Jacobson has experience 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 Jacobson 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.

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The Reverend Dr. Peter R. Powell, assisting priest

The Reverend Peter R. Powell began attending St. Mary the Virgin in 2002 and has been teaching bible in Adult Ed since 2007.  He has been an assisting priest since 2010.  He was graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary with an M.Div. in 1976, Princeton Theological Seminary with a Th.M. in 1979 and The School of Theology, The University of the South with a D. Min. in 1997.  He was Adjunct Professor of Biblical Languages at Virginia Seminary from 1980-1984 and Instructor of Hebrew and Teaching Fellow at Princeton Seminary in the late 70s.  For 22 years until his retirement in 2010 Father Powell was the President/CEO of Homes with Hope, a Supportive Housing and Emergency Services provider in Westport, CT where he continues to live with his wife, Barbara.

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Music Department

Dr. David Hurd, organist and music director 

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. 

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More information on Music at Saint Mary's

Parish Staff

The Board of Trustees

Ms. Patricia Ahearn ● Mr. Steven Eldredge ● Mr. Steven Heffner, treasurer ● Ms. Katherine Hoyt
Mr. Clark Mitchell ● Dr. Charles Morgan, vice president ● Ms. Renee Pecquex-Burroughs
Mr. Dale Reynolds ● Ms. Mary Robison, secretary ● Ms. Reha Sterbin ● The Reverend Sammy Wood, president

Parish Office
145 West 46th Street • New York, New York • 10036 • Telephone 212.869.5830 • Email