The appearance of Christ in the presence of Thomas followed at the end of the Jewish Passover. Crowds of pilgrims moved to their homes, and the Apostles also went to their Galilee; they went there also because Jesus had told them to assemble there, since they had been promised that there He would appear to them.

Yes, in His farewell conversation with the Apostles, just before entering Gethsemane, Jesus said:

but after my resurrection I will go before you in Galilee (Matt. 26:32). After this, the angel who appeared to the myrrh-bearing women after the Resurrection of Jesus said:

go quickly, tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead and is going before you in Galilee; there you will see Him (Matt. 28:7; Mk. 16:7). Finally, the resurrected Jesus Himself, appearing to the same myrrh-bearing women, said:

Go and tell My brethren to go into Galilee, and there they shall see Me (Matt. 28:10). In short, Jesus intended to appear to His Apostles for the first time in Galilee, whither He had told them to go. Why did He appear to them in Judea, and moreover, before the appearances in Galilee?

The state of mind of the Apostles was such that it was extremely necessary to support them, to calm them down, to prevent complete disappointment. That is probably why the appearances of Jesus Christ followed in Jerusalem.

Apparition in Galilee

Returning to their native Galilee, the Apostles took up their former occupation, fishing. And so, by the Sea of Tiberias, which was also called the Lake or Sea of Galilee, Simon Peter, Thomas, surnamed the Twin, Nathanael, who was a native of Cana of Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, and two other disciples, not named by the Evangelist, were gathered; it is believed that they were Andrew and Philip. Simon said that he was going to fish, and they all followed him; We got into the boat, drove away from the shore, cast our nets, worked all night, but did not catch anything. In the morning, as they approached the shore, they saw a Man standing there, Who addressed them with these words:

children! Do you have any food? And they answered him, No; and He said to them, "Cast a net on the right side of the boat, and you will catch" (John 21:5-6). They obeyed, cast their nets, and when they began to pull them, they could not pull them out of the multitude of fish that fell into them. Then Peter, James, and John remembered how, three years before, on the same lake, they had cast their nets at the command of Jesus, after an unsuccessful night's fishing, and how their nets were filled with a multitude of fish; John looked at the Man standing on the shore, recognized Jesus in Him, and immediately said to Peter:

it's the Lord! (John 21:7). Peter looked at the shore and saw that it was as if He were He! Beside himself with joy, he grabs the first clothes he comes across, girds his naked body with them and throws himself into the water to swim to the shore as soon as possible. Although it was not far from the shore, only about two hundred cubits (or a hundred meters), the boat could not dock soon, since those sitting in it had to drag a net loaded with fish. Peter swam or waded to the shore and stayed with Jesus, while the rest of the Apostles pulled the net to the shore.