Raymond Stewart Wood Jr. (June 25, 1934 – July 30, 2023) was a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
[1] Raymond Stewart Wood Jr. was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1956 and Virginia Theological Seminary in 1959, as well as Ball State University with a master's degree in counseling and sociology in 1973.
In late 1994, he received media attention for ordaining a lesbian, Jennifer Walters, as a priest at Church of the Incarnation in Pittsfield Township, Michigan.
He joined auxiliary Catholic bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Rabbi Irwin Gronor of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, and Rabbi M. Robert Syme of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan in taking the position following a meeting the faith leaders held on August 15, 1995.
[6] On January 12, 2015, he joined approximately 100 other bishops of the Episcopal Church, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in sending a statement to the United States Congress and the White House in support of President Barack Obama's executive order offering relief from deportation to immigrants to the United States.