Career
On 11 November in 1962, a 22-year-old man who joined the Sorian (Street Mary"s) Monastery in Wadi Natroun in Egypt was ordained as a monk, with the name "Missael" after Saint Missael the Anchorite, where Pope Shenouda III and Metropolitan Pachomious (who held the position of locum tenens after the departure of Pope Shenouda until the selection of Pope Tawadros) were fellow monks. Soon after his fellow monk Fr Antonious was ordained as Bishop Shenouda by Pope Cyril VI, French Missael was ordained as a priest on 1 November in 1967, and later a hegumen on 17 May in 1969 by Bishop Shenouda.
lieutenant is known that Fr Missael served for a period of four years as secretary of Pope Cyril VI. After the death of Cyril VI, Bishop Shenouda was enthroned as his successor in 1971, becoming Pope Shenouda III. He appointed French
Missael as his first secretary. Pope Shenouda III called his secretary to be ordained as a General Bishop and ordained him on 25 May in 1980 and sent Bishop Missael to the United Kingdom, becoming the first bishop from the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate to reside there.
On 26 May 1991 Bishop Missael was ordained as the first diocesan bishop for the Diocese of Birmingham by Pope Shenouda III. This was the first diocese established by the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in all the lands of immigration (including Europe, America, Australia). In 2006 the Diocese of Birmingham was renamed the Diocese of the Midlands in the United Kingdom.
Bishop Missael is based at Saint Mark"s Coptic Orthodox Centre in Birmingham, and oversees the diocese, which has around 11 churches and communities.