Death is not the end: the end is life in God

Canon Jones became Vicar of Malton in 1998 and was Rural Dean of Southern Ryedale until stepping down in 2002 due to failing health. He leaves behind his wife, Sally, 52 and son Paul, 22.

The Archbishop said:

"News of Nick's passing away into the everlasting arms of the Lord he so dearly loved and served reached me during a meeting of the Archbishops' Council in London. I said my prayers for Sally, Paul and Nick - he will rest in peace.

"My visits during Nick's illness clearly revealed to me how the parish and people of Malton loved Nick's family. A huge number of callers bear testimony to this. During my visits it was clear how strong Nick's faith and confidence in God was - a faith in a God of love for this life and in the world to come.

"I was made aware of a massive respect for a Rural Dean who really cared for the pastoral needs of the Clergy and people of the Deanery. Nick was a pastor through and through.

"For Nick, death was not the end. The end was life in God."

• Canon Nicholas Newman Jones was born in Leeds in 1951. He was educated at King William's College in the Isle of Man, King's College London, and St Augustine's College, Canterbury. He was ordained in 1975 and served his first curacy at the Church of Ascension in Hull, where he met his wife. They married in 1978.
• In 1992 he became Rural Dean of Whitby and following a brief spell at Hutton Buscel and Wykeham, near Scarborough, in 1998 he became Vicar of Malton. In 2002 Mr Jones became Rural Dean of the new Deanery of Southern Ryedale and in 2005 was made a Canon of York Minster.
• His funeral took place today, Monday October 2nd, at St Michael's Church in Malton. The celebrant was the Reverend Peter Bowes and the preacher, the Right Reverend Gordon Bates, former Bishop of Whitby.

Featured in the Malton and Pickering Mercury Reporter.