The Church of England has seen some growth in overall attendance in the last year, with services at Christmas and Easter continuing to be big draws for churches.
Christmas services saw a 20 per cent jump in attendance in 2023. Just under two million people (1,961,000) attended services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day last year, up from 1,636,000 in 2022.
Across the entire season of Advent, some 2.1 million people attended a congregational or community service, while 2.3 million attended a civic or school service.
Easter services in 2023 enjoyed an 8.6 per cent rise, with 938,000 people in attendance.
Overall weekly attendance increased for a third year in a row, rising to 693,000 last year - up 4.5 per cent from the 663,000 who attended the year before. This still remains far below pre-pandemic levels, however, when average weekly attendance was over 854,000.
The number of children attending weekly increased from 90,000 in 2022 to 95,000 - up 4.9 per cent in a year.
The total number of regular worshippers across all services in 2023 rose over a million for the first time since before the pandemic to 1,007,000 in 2023, up from 982,000 the previous year.
The statistics were compiled by Dr Ken Eames, in the Church of England Data Services team, and published this week in the Statistics for Mission 2023 report.
Dr Eames said that the latest statistics were likely to be a cause for "both optimism and concern". Anecdotal evidence, he said, suggests the growth lies in a combination of newcomers and former worshippers returning to in-person services after Covid.
"By many measures of attendance and participation, the Church of England grew from 2022 to 2023. Nevertheless, it remains smaller than it was in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.
"Attendance, by most measures, remains below the projected pre-pandemic trend. For many people, therefore, the response to these figures will understandably be a combination of both optimism and concern.
"Based on personal observations and what I have heard from churches, the growth from 2022 to 2023 is a combination of 'new' joiners and people who have returned to in-person worship following the pandemic.
"I do not have sufficient information to allow an informed assessment of the balance between the two; indeed, in some cases such a simple distinction would not apply.
"The situation is likely to vary from church to church, particularly since those people who have returned to church may have done so because of the revival of some church services and activities that have taken time to restart."
