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DIOCESE OF ST. THOMAS IN
THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
Most Reverend Elliott G.
Thomas
St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands
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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.
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