The Rev Malcolm Stonestreet collected an MBE from the Queen at Buckingham Palace this week.
Mr Stonestreet became known in Leeds in the early 1960s when he was a curate in the city's Parish Church, taking the Gospel to the people by holding services at Leeds wholesale market.
He became senior curate at St Chad's at Headingley in Leeds in 1964, and three years later moved to Askrigg in one of the most beautiful of Yorkshire's Dales, Wensleydale.
Inner-city
It was there that he established the Askrigg Foundation, establishing Low Mill Hostel as a residential centre for young people.
He remained in the Dales for 14 years before returning to inner-city Leeds, continuing his ministry in the west Leeds community of Bramley in 1981.
The national unemployment figures were beginning to rise and were to quadruple to four million.
Mr Stonestreet bought an old mill to turn into a "palace for the unemployed."
In 1994 he left Leeds to become Vicar of Eskdale, Muncaster, Irton and Waberthwaite, outside Scarborough.
Today he lives in retirement in a rural community, Grange in Borrowdale.