US study says Episcopal Church attendance dwindling

A RECENT study done by the Anglican organization Virtue Online claims that more than one-third of Episcopal churches in the US have only 40 or less members and that attendance numbers are still dropping.

“What this foreshadows is that within the next three to five years more than 2,000 churches across the country will be forced to close, merge or be sold regardless of cash reserves or endowment because there will simply not be enough people in them to keep the doors open,” read the Aug. 23 survey.

Not only will hundreds of Episcopal clergy will be “forced into early retirement,” said the organization, but many will have to take secondary employment “in an attempt to keep the doors open to a handful of aging congregants.”

Virtue Online examined 6,825 parishes and their accounts of average Sunday attendance from the Episcopal Church’s 2009 records.

Report from EWTN News