Bishop Thomas Tut’s Biography

The Rt. Revd. Thomas Tut Gany was born around 1977 in Bajack, a village in western Ayod County. He grew up in a peasant agro–pastoralist family. In 1989, around the age of 12 – 13 years, he was forcefully recruited as a child-soldier (Red Army) under the SPLA, a guerilla rebel movement led by late Dr. John Garang De Mabior fighting against oppressive regime based in Khartoum. In 1995 he (Thomas Tut) felt the call of the Lord Jesus Christ while in the army and returned home to serve in the Lord’s ministry. Since 1995, Thomas Tut has been instrumental in Church planting, evangelization and ministering to the people of God in Ayod and Fangak Area. He was very much engaged in planting churches along other volunteer Evangelists who felt the same call.
In 2001, he traveled to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, where he met Bishop Nathaniel Garang Anyieth of The Episcopal Diocese of Bor who later on made him a deacon and sent him to Bible School (Malek Bible School – in Kakuma, Kenya) and in the year 2003 was ordained and priested and subsequently appointed Archdeacon of Ayod Archdeaconry.
In 2005, Thomas Tut had a vision to help his community both through Education, Healthcare, Nutrition, Food Security and Livelihoods, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and development programs. With this vision, he founded a National Christian NGO (Christian Mission for Development – CMD), a non-profit, relief and development organization currently helping IDPs, returnees and host communities through provision of essentials social services, elevating people out of poverty and illiteracy in remotest regions of South Sudan. CMD is currently one of the leading national NGOs delivering humanitarian and development assistance to communities in partnership with UN agencies and international NGOs in South Sudan – learn more: www.cmd.org
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In 2009, in his quest to see a rooted Anglican Church in Nuer community, Thomas Tut translated part of “The Book of Common Prayer” an official Anglican prayer book used worldwide since 1662 into Nuer language and printed over 5,500 copies, which are widely in use by all Nuer speaking congregations both in South Sudan and in East African Countries.
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In November 2013, during the annual House of Bishops’ meeting which was held in Bor, the headquarters of the See of Bor and the capital city of Jonglei State, Ayod was created an Area Diocese under the Episcopal Church and subsequently a meeting was called by the Diocesan Bishop of Twic East – Ezekiel Diing Malangdit where the members of ECSS in Ayod and Fangak congregations convened meetings in their respective parishes in the field and in Juba to elect the new Area Bishop. In these meetings, Thomas Tut was unanimously elected for the position of Bishop in the Area Bishopric of Ayod. His name was submitted to the “House of Bishops’ meeting by the electoral college of the new area Diocese in the Diocese of Kajo-Keji and his nomination was duly approved on 24th November - 2014 after a thorough background check by the college of Bishops. After the House of Bishops’ approval, Thomas Tut was consecrated first Bishop of the Area Diocese of Ayod along with other 8 bishops across South Sudan on 30th November – 2014.
On 14th July 2018, the Area Diocese of Ayod was inaugurated full Diocese and on 18/November/ 2018, Rt. Rev’d. Thomas Tut Gany was enthroned as the first Diocesan Bishop of Ayod Diocese at St. Paul’s Cathedral Church in Gorwai (Pajiek Archdeaconry)