Introducing Bishop Thomas Bishop Thomas is a man with vision. He is from a well-to-do Egyptian family and could have emigrated to the West but instead not only decided to stay in Egypt but the become a monk. One year later he became bishop of al-Qussia and he saw it as his mission to raising his parishioners’ sense of dignity. He was shocked by the level of poverty in the region, and by the tendency for people to become captives within a system of social hierarchy. He wants his parishioners to know their own worth, not to have it given to them.