Richard L. Roberts announced today that he was stepping down indefinitely as president of Oral Roberts University, a post that has been overshadowed in recent weeks by accusations that he used university resources to back a local politician and to lavish extravagances on his family.

“I pray and believe that in God’s timing, and when the board feels that it is appropriate, I will be back at my post as president,” Mr. Roberts said, according to a transcript posted by the Tulsa World.

The riveting saga began on October 2, when three former professors at Oral Roberts sued Mr. Roberts and the university, accusing him of pressuring them to work on a local political campaign. The suit also said the professors had been harassed and intimidated after they accidentally came upon a document that purported to list dozens of instances of financial and ethical misconduct committed by Mr. Roberts and his wife, Lindsay Roberts.

According to that document, among many other accusations, Mr. and Ms. Roberts gave out scholarships to friends of the family, and in an allegation that became public only last week, Ms. Roberts repeatedly brought underage men to spend the night with her.

The suit also accuses the university of negligence and of destroying documents relevant to the case.

Mr. Roberts, Ms. Roberts, and the university have denied all those charges. “They sicken me to my soul,” Ms. Roberts said of the accusations against her. —John Gravois