The row follows the publication of last year's accounts which reveal that Dean Furnell earned more than £40,000 in 2002/03 and Chapter Steward lay Canon Peter Lyddon a total of nearly £64,000 – almost £3,000 more than the Archbishop of Canterbury –
while the Minster is weighed down by a £600,000 debt.
Speaking at his home in Bury St Edmunds, Dean Furnell said yesterday he had never awarded himself a pay rise. Increases in his pay were awarded by the Church Commissioners. The rise was "three per cent – a percentage in line with the rise in stipends for all clergymen," he said.
It also included two per cent in "augmentation" fees paid to the Minster clergy for special responsibilities at such a major church.
Now 68, Dean Furnell was Dean of York for nine years until he retired in August 2003, when he earned £40,718. This included a pension contribution for him of £8,294, paid by the Church Commissioners. In August last year, the cathedral imposed a compulsory admission charge of £4.50, despite opposition.
The former dean said yesterday: "It is untrue that I awarded myself any pay rise. No dean has the authority to award himself a pay rise."
He also stressed that there was nothing new about the augmentation fees. He said: "There have been augmentations since the late 1960s or early seventies – that is going back five deans. So I inherited my augmentation.
"In 1999 a new Cathedrals Measure passed by the General Synod contained the clause that these augmentations could continue – maintaining a practice which was then very well established.
"My salary of £26,300 is the stipend decided on by the Church of England's central stipends authority. Augmentations were inherited, as I've said, and the pension contributions were not a chapter matter either."
The Minster accounts say the practice of paying augmentations "has now ceased for future deans and new canons, following a review of augmentation policy by the chapter."
Asked why the reform did not go further to include still-active canons, Dean Furnell said: "The view of the chapter was that that would be unfair to those still in office."
Canon Lyddon, who is effectively the Minster's chief executive, explained that augmentations for remaining canons were being reviewed on a three-yearly basis rather than annually.
He added: "Augmentations have been part of the the pay structure for clergy at the Minster for at least 30 years. But they are being phased out because we realise the world is changing and with fewer parish vicars, their responsibilities are probably now greater than clergy at the big cathedrals."
Canon Lyddon insisted that his own salary was fixed by the Minster's predominantly lay finance committee and was in line with his counterpart at Canterbury Cathedral and less than equivalent officials in London cathedrals.
However, a prominent member of the cathedral congregation David Dawson said: "This is a reform too late. And it doesn't go far enough. Now Raymond Furnell has gone further reforms could and should be made."
And a former member of the Minster's visitors' team, Lesley Woodfield said: "I have been trying to raise this issue for several years but nobody would listen."
