DIOCESE OF ST. THOMAS IN THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

       Bishop Elliott G. Thomas was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 25, 1926. He is the fifth of eight children. The family roots are in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, where he returned in 1934. The young Elliott Thomas was enrolled in the Methodist Day School in Road Town and, as a teenager attended Charlotte Amalie High School in St. Thomas, where he graduated in 1945.

The year following his graduation, he served as a Clerk of the Municipal Homestead Commission, and Clerk of the Adult Evening School in St. Thomas. In 1945, he enrolled in the College of Pharmacy at Howard University in Washington, DC where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950. After qualifying as a registered pharmacist in Detroit, Michigan, he joined the United States Army and was assigned to FranMort-Hoechst and to Munich, Germany.

Returning to the Virgin Islands that year, he served as a registered pharmacist at VI Apothecary, Inc., in St. Thomas. From 1954 - 1959, he worked as a pharmacist with the Veterans Administration in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he also studied part-time at Gannon College, majoring in Business Administration.

On October 2 1957, he converted to Catholicism and was received into the Church at St. Peter's Cathedral in Erie, Pennsylvania. He began his studies for the priesthood in 1982 at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands on June 6, 1986, and was appointed Episcopal Vicar for the Diocese and pastor of Holy Family Church.

Father Thomas served as pastor of St. Ann's Church on St. Croix, pastor of Holy Family Church, Dean of the Diocese and the Vicar General. The Diocesan Consulters of the Diocese of St. Thomas unanimously elected Father Thomas to serve as Diocesan Administrator, a post he filled from August 11, 1992 until he was named as the Third Bishop of the Virgin Islands on October 30, 1993. He was consecrated and installed at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral on Sunday, December 12 1993.