A FORMER pupil of Monmouth School has been appointed an Honorary Canon of St Paul's Cathedral in Nicosia, Cyprus. He is the Rev Michael Jones, port chaplain in Limassol with The Mission to Seafarers and parish priest at St Barnabas church in Limassol.
At a service in the Cathedral, Michael was licensed and installed by the Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, the Rt Rev Clive Handford, the Mission's liaison bishop for Jerusalem and the Middle East.
Michael was the British chaplain in Kuwait from 1983 until it was invaded by Iraqi forces in 1990. They took Michael, his wife Jean and other Westerners to Iraq and used them as human shields. Among Michael's chaplaincy roles was that of Mission to Seafarers honorary chaplain.
Michael was born in Mynyddislwyn, Gwent, in 1933 and educated at Raglan School and Monmouth School. He took an Honours degree in History at St David's University and studied theology at St John's College, Durham.
He was ordained deacon in Monmouth in 1958 and priest the following year. He served a curacy at St John's, Maindee, Newport. From 1960 until 1963 he was curate of the Penhow group of parishes. He was Vicar of Magor with Redwick in the same diocese of Monmouth from 1963 until 1968.
From 1968 until 1972 Michael worked in Western Australia before becoming Rector of Kirkby Thore and Temple Sowerby with Newbiggin in the diocese of Carlisle. He was priest in charge of St James and St Andrew's, Accrington, in the Blackburn diocese, from 1980 to 1983 when he left for Kuwait.
On returning from the Gulf, Michael later became Rector of Swardeston in Norfolk in 1991 with responsibility for five villages. He joined The Mission to Seafarers in Cyprus in 1996.