English Cathedrals Seek to Boost Attendance
Episcopal News Service. April 13, 2000 [2000-078L]
(ENI) The English Church Attendance Survey, published in January, revealed that in the past decade average church attendance on Sundays had dropped by one-fifth or more across most mainstream denominations. Yet officials of the principal churches of the two biggest denominations -- Canterbury Cathedral (Anglican, in Kent, southern England) and Westminster Cathedral (Roman Catholic, in London) -- said that attendance on Sundays had been holding up for several years.
At Wells, a medieval Anglican cathedral, the main Sunday service has had to be moved out of the quire, seating about 200, into the body of the church, to accommodate about double that number of worshippers, administrator John Roberts told ENI.
"To ask about Sunday attendance is, however, to some extent to ask the wrong question," he said. "Cathedrals are being used more and more for a huge range of activities, not only services."
At medieval Canterbury Cathedral, the mother church of the Anglican Communion, Sunday attendances are keeping "level."
Spokesman Chris Robinson said: "As well as the quality of worship, including singing and liturgy, people are drawn by the historical nature of the building. The space gives a sense of drama."
Wells was solidly booked for more than a year ahead, he added. An additional 32,500 people were drawn to the cathedral last year for the Advent and Christmas period, between Advent Sunday and Boxing Day (December 26).