Hundreds pay Ripon cathedral tribute after popular Dean Keith Jukes’s shock death

More than 850 mourners, including dignitaries and church leaders, were united in their grief at Ripon Cathedral yesterday at the funeral of the Dean, Keith Jukes.

The Dean, who was 59, died at Harrogate District Hospital of suspected cancer on May 21 with his wife, the Rev Susanne Jukes, at his bedside.

Yesterday his coffin was carried to the centre of Ripon Cathedral by four bearers including his son, Matthew.

His daughter Laura read a poem, The Coming by RS Thomas at the service of thanksgiving for the life and ministry of her father.

The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, John Packer, told the congregation: “Many of us know those times when in uncertainty, bitterness, failure, Keith has been alongside us, showing us the hands of Christ, gently pointing to the risen Lord in our pain and anguish.”

He added: “Keith taught us about reality: the reality of this great church standing for Christ in our city. Amongst the contribution he and his colleagues have made are those glorious glass west doors, which flood light into this church and create an openness of the church to the city: the city to the church.

“Keith’s deep concern was that Christ be seen as the risen Lord for church and world – from the building of community in 1980s Stoneydelph to the growth of urban Cannock, and the great churches of Selby and Ripon seeking to be at the heart of the places they serve.”

Mourners were invited to bring a small stone to be placed on a cairn in the cathedral which will remain there until the anniversary of Dean Jukes’s ordination at the end of June.

On June 30, those being ordained will be invited to take a stone as a symbol of the continuity of the late Dean’s ministry.

Bishop John told mourners: “Many of us have contributed today to that cairn at the cathedral entrance, the traditional mark of a pilgrimage, and a mark of Keith’s pilgrimage and ours.

“The stones Barbara and I laid there came from a walk on Saturday around Malham, when we talked of Keith and Susanne, our friends, brought limestone chunks from Gordale Scar and thought of Keith getting a camera in exactly the right place to photograph the Scar.

“Today Keith moves on in his pilgrimage to the fulfilment of Easter, and knows afresh the Lord he has served, now in the light of Christ’s resurrected presence.”

The Rev Susanne Jukes read from the Bible.

After the service Canon John Carter, spokesman for the diocese of Ripon and Leeds, said: “It was a sad and moving occasion but at the same time there was a real sense of Keith’s own faith in the God of eternity, a sense of continuation and a sense of eternal life.”

Dean Jukes, a former vicar of Selby Abbey, had written an announcement, which was read two days before he died, at services in Ripon Cathedral in which he disclosed he was unwell and that tests had revealed a growth in his upper abdomen which doctors were convinced was cancerous.

He took up his post six years ago after Ripon Cathedral had endured one of the most turbulent periods in its history.