Christopher Warner

Christopher S. Warner (born 1969) is an American bishop in the Anglican Church in North America. (ACNA) He is the second bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic (DOMA). He was previously a priest in the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina.

In November 2025, The Washington Post reported that Warner was one of four bishops in the Anglican Church in North America who had declined to endorse an ecclesiastical presentment against Archbishop Steve Wood after being approached about allegations that Wood engaged in sexual harassment, bullying of church staff, and plagiarism.

Early life, education, and family

Warner was born in 1969 in Pueblo, Colorado. He was baptized in the Catholic Church but did not grow up attending church. In high school and college, Warner became a Deadhead and followed the Grateful Dead on East Coast tours. He has said that he became fearful of demonic presences at Grateful Dead concerts. During a Dead concert at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., Warner left the stadium and prayed for conversion.

Warner graduated from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 1991. After college, he began discernment for ordained ministry and served as a youth pastor at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Charlotte. He chose to leave St. Christopher's in 2011. With the rift between the Diocese of South Carolina and the Episcopal Church portending future litigation over diocesan properties, Warner has said that "ecessarily, St. Christopher would be stewarded through management rather than visionary growth. After much prayer, I realized my gift mix was better suited elsewhere." )

Warner returned to Holy Cross as an associate priest and in 2015 was appointed rector of the multisite congregation with a ministry staff of 22 plus two preschool programs at its two campuses.

In the late 2010s, Warner has said, he was encouraged to consider episcopal ministry by the Anglican Network in Canada's suffragan bishop Trevor Walters and Bishop Mark Lawrence. Following consent from the ACNA College of Bishops, Warner was consecrated as a bishop by Foley Beach and 25 other ACNA bishops on February 18, 2023, at the Falls Church Anglican. During the servicebishop of the he was invested as the diocese's second bishop.

Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic

In September 2023, Warner ordered an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against a youth minister who had been employed by The Falls Church Episcopal in the 1990s and early 2000s. The independent inquiry concluded that the youth minister "engaged in sexual abuse of students who participated in the youth program while he was employed". At the conclusion of the investigation in April 2024, Warner ordered a pastoral letter be read aloud in every congregation in DOMA, in which he shared the report's conclusion regarding The Falls Church's role in responding to the allegations: The report finds that when a credible allegation of sexual abuse was received in 2007, the church did not do enough to determine whether others were harmed. Finally, the report finds that in 2021, when these allegations were raised again, the church failed to take the necessary steps to investigate what happened in the church's past. In November 2024, Warner took the unusual step of publicly announcing that he had issued "godly admonitions" against the former and current rectors of The Falls Church Anglican, criticizing them for failing to investigate the allegations when first informed.

In October, The Washington Post reported that an ecclesiastical presentment had been issued against Wood, who was being accused of forcibly touching and attempting to kiss a female staff member in his office, of improperly paying her thousands of dollars in church funds, of bullying and disparaging colleagues, and of plagiarism. The misconduct was alleged to have occurred at St. Andrew's Church in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where Wood was the longtime rector. On October 23, Warner responded with a statement calling it "disheartening" that the allegations had been shared with the Post and expressing confidence in the ACNA provincial office: "I'm confident that the ACNA is taking this seriously ... and does not hesitate to take action when action is warranted."

However, in November 2025, the Washington Post revealed that Warner had been one of four bishops initially approached about the allegations. Warner acknowledged that the complainants had shared the draft presentment against Wood with him in May, months before speaking to the Post. Warner had also been informed that the allegations contained a charge of sexual harassment involving a "potential unwanted advance" by Wood. At the time, he had declined to endorse or read the presentment, instead referring them to a reporting channel managed by Wood's staff because, in Warner's words, "there are women in that process". Warner also encouraged them to wait a year or more until a new disciplinary process was set to be adopted.

On November 16, Warner sent an email to the clergy of DOMA offering an apology to the women in his diocese and the women who had made allegations against Wood: "I recognize that women's experiences are too often overlooked or minimized, particularly in systems led by men." He concluded the email by stating that he had recently called for an inhibition of Wood.