Church Of England Says Attendance Is Growing At Cathedrals

By Trevor Grundy
Religion News Service

CANTERBURY, ENGLAND (RNS/ENInews) In a challenge to conventional wisdom that church attendance is plummeting across Britain and Western Europe, the Church of England says attendance at its 43 cathedrals grew 7 percent last year.

A report by the Rev. Lynda Barley, head of research and statistics at the Archbishops' Council, said "attendance at services outside Sundays" was up 10 percent in 2010, and "steady growth" in the past decade "is restoring confidence in mission."

About 15,800 adults and 3,100 children and young people attend Sunday services at cathedrals; over the course of a typical week, that figure rises to 27,400 adults and 7,600 children.

Following the April 29 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton at London's Westminster Abbey (which is not considered a cathedral), the Venerable Simon Burton-Jones, archdeacon for the Diocese of Rochester, told ENInews: "I think we're going to have to wait a year or so to see just how the wedding impacted on people."

Lisa Emanuel, a spokeswoman for Canterbury Cathedral, told ENInews that it's not unusual to welcome more than 20 nationalities at services. "We love sharing this holy and very special place and are delighted with the recent figures released by the Archbishops' Council," she said.

Canterbury Cathedral is considered the "mother church" of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, and welcomes more than 1 million visitors every year.

The report said regular cathedral services attracted 2 million people in 2010, while an additional 1.63 million attended about 5,150 public or civic events.

Comments

[califson]

11:07 PM on 06/09/2011

good news

[detroitblkmale30]

02:56 PM on 06/03/2011

Perhaps the religious sky in Europe is not falling afterall as soo many like to consistently state.

[LMPE]

07:11 PM on 05/12/2011

I've never quite understood the difference between churches and cathedrals.

[Hysterian68]

10:28 PM on 05/12/2011

A cathedral is the seat of a residential bishop or archbishop where his "cathedra" or chair (often a throne-like structure) is located. They're usually quite large, but the size hasn't anything to do with their canonical status. Churches are extensions in a sense of the cathedral and usually have pastors or rectors who are subject to the bishop's oversight. This is certainly the case in the Roman, Anglican, and Orthodox churches, and some Lutheran churches in Scandinavia, but the level of oversight varies in these churches.

[rsttho557949]

02:37 PM on 05/15/2011

Do you know the difference between a church and a chapel? Just about every college or university has a "chapel" rather than a church. Just goes to show that when money is involved, colleges and universities will do a "Judas" in a heartbeat towards Christianity.

Glad to see some rise in attendance in those great buildings that were honoring God when they were built.7% is a start but it is tragic that the Muslims flock to their temples without begging or pleading to them. In this country folks have to resort to "marketing strategies" just to attract folks to church. When I was a kid your didn't need a "rock star" level pastor preaching at a mega-church, or having various forms of "current" music being played or having people "come as sloppy as you are", to church. We came because we knew it was the right thing to do.

[arabia]

06:24 PM on 05/11/2011

Cathedrals everywhere win out in attendance, including in Catholic and Orthodox cathedrals (besides Anglican). In Catholic Europe -- the big cathedrals of Cologne, Paris, Milan, Munich, Barcelona, Vienna, etc -- are always loaded with people. The liturgies are great, great music, and color. The same is true in New York at St. Patrick's Cathedral (Catholic) and St. John the Divine (Episcopal). Finally, cathedrals are getting noticed and appreciated for their services!

[sideshowbobfact]

12:15 PM on 05/11/2011

England has forty-two religions and only two sauces.
- Voltaire

[ladyjonquil]

08:28 AM on 05/12/2011

A rabbi friend of my had that on a plaque in his kitchen! And boy could he and his wife cook. (Waxing nostalgic for frosh year in college...)

[auburnbob]

10:13 AM on 05/11/2011

It's summer.. time to renew contracts with church schools so our kids can attend.. parents have to be in church on sunday! this is no surprise

[Indigo1941]

07:14 AM on 05/11/2011

That's a very interesting set of statistics. It reminds me of a character in one or the other of Oscar Wilde's plays who often made the Sign of the Cross with very large gestures, not because she was a believer but because she thought it helped her to look dramatic, perhaps exotic.

[Hysterian68]

04:44 AM on 05/11/2011

the Venerable Simon Burton-Jones, archdeacon for the Diocese of Rochester, told ENInews: "I think we're going to have to wait a year or so to see just how the wedding impacted on people."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Impacted"? Send the archdeacon to the Tower.

[Hysterian68]

04:19 AM on 05/11/2011

Many of those flocking to the Church of England cathedrals are Roman Catholics who've had it with the Bavarian Gauleiter's ruinous rule of the Church, his misfeasant and malfeasant leadership, and the rule of a weak and venal hierarchy.

[murphthesurf3]

08:14 AM on 05/11/2011

I know I have for precisely those reasons. Fanned.

[NYJedi]

09:51 AM on 05/11/2011

Similar here in the US with the Episcopal Church (CofE branch here). Many of the churches are filling up with po'd Catholics.

[IndySC]

10:54 AM on 05/11/2011

I'm a lifelong Episcopalian. Visitors in our parish generally fall into 3 categories. Disillusioned Catholics, Baptists who's heads can't take any more beating and Catholic-Protestant marriages who can't worship together anywhere else.

I wouldn't exactly say "filling up", however. Episcopalians and Anglicans tend to celebrate prematurely whenever there's a up tick in attendance.

However; Via Media, Baby! I love it. :)

[Hysterian68]

03:46 AM on 05/12/2011

My Anglican parish has over two-thirds of it's membership made up of former Roman Catholics. They're drawn to the beauty of the English liturgies and they've also had it with the hateful and despicable treatment of women and gays by the U.S. bishops and the Bavarian gauleiter bent on taking everyone back to the 16th century.
We'll be seeing more conversions, particularly from women, as the Catholic Church continues to implode.

[HansMoleman]

04:17 AM on 05/11/2011

After a dramatic decline in attendance between the 1950s and the 1970s, membership of the C of E has stabilised over recent years. But cathedrals have led the trend, and the growth of numbers woshipping in large and historic buildings is not necessarily reflected in attendance at a parish level.

[Hysterian68]

04:45 AM on 05/11/2011

The CofE has the most beautiful liturgies in western Christianity. Then followed by the Byzantine Orthodox. They haven't destroyed their services like the papists did.

[Indigo1941]

07:12 AM on 05/11/2011

I can agree with that thought. What the papists did to their services in incomprehensible.

[LisaCACO]

10:59 PM on 05/10/2011

I know I came back to the Anglican church in the past decade, but that was because of the ordination of gays here in the US. I felt I needed to support that.

[Hysterian68]

04:32 AM on 05/11/2011

Many Roman Catholics are joining you in solidarity with Anglicans who have seen the light and want to see the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate, and they want to see the same for openly gay seminarians. The whitened sepulchers ruling the Roman Church knowingly ordain gay, sexually active men to the priesthood all the time, but then denounce them and all gays and lesbians from the pulpit. They have endangered not only the flock they head, but their very souls.

That wretched hypocrisy is sending Roman Catholicism into the toilet worldwide. At long last, the laity are seeing through the veil of pompous hierarchical Phariseeism and prevarication.

[murphthesurf3]

08:17 AM on 05/11/2011

More truth.

[dgr]

10:05 PM on 05/11/2011

What a lot of malarkey!

100 US Anglican parishes convert to Roman Catholic Church

Look it up. Anglicans are leaving the church of HenryVIII en masse.

[Nathaneal Green]

07:28 PM on 05/10/2011

All desire peace of mind and soul

[murphthesurf3]

08:17 AM on 05/11/2011

But many leaders desire power and wealth......

[Nathaneal Green]

08:28 AM on 05/11/2011

Why do you drag Obama into this?