WORSHIPPERS packed into York Minster to give thanks for the life of the former Dean of York, the Very Rev Dr Raymond Furnell.

His colleague, Dr Richard Shephard, paid tribute to a man with "something larger than life about him - something on a heroic scale".

Dr Furnell died at his home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in July, aged 71. A special Evensong service commemorating his life was held in the Minster on Saturday.

Dr Shephard, former headmaster of the Minster School and now the cathedral's director of development, told the congregation: "Ray was a bewildering mixture of elements - combative, but frequently sentimental."

He said Dr Furnell had done a "vast amount", both for the Minster and for the City of York - but the end of his time as Dean was blighted by financial problems and a "campaign of vilification in the press".

In 2003, Dr Furnell controversially introduced an entry fee to tackle the Minster's budget deficit. A national newspaper later alleged that Dr Furnell and four canons had increased their salaries by almost a quarter through "augmentation" payments - a claim rebutted as "scurrilous" by Dr Furnell.

Dr Shephard said the Dean had "honourably attempted to sort out" the Minster's financial woes, rather than leave them to his successor, and "conducted himself with quiet dignity" throughout the furore.

But he said Dr Furnell would be warmly remembered for bringing the Millennium Mystery Plays to the city. He said: "Perhaps the achievement of which he was most proud was the production of the Millennium Mystery Plays. I have a sneaking suspicion that he really wanted to be on the stage acting, because there was something of a thespian about him."

Dr Furnell was born in 1935, and became a priest in 1966. He was the Provost of St Edmundsbury from 1981 to 1994, and the Dean of York from 1994 until his retirement in 2003.

Dr Shephard added: "Cathedrals have short memories. They exist for centuries but their staff come and go, and activities which become enshrined as immovable traditions often have their origins in the recent past."

Many such traditions, he said, were thanks to the "exciting, restless, but creative" Dr Furnell.