"One Church a Week" Closes amid Declining Worshippers

Once being a country with strong Christian heritage, England is now threatened by the prediction saying that church closure will reach "more than one per week" in a few years, reported the BBC.

The Ecclesiological Society said that there was a huge range of churches vulnerable to abandonment.

In the recent years, the Church of England has recorded a decline of churchgoers. While some parishes have started innovated campaigns to bring back the pews, the efficiency is still minimal.

BBC reported that a total of 800 parishes now have 10 or fewer adults in their regular Sunday congregations. There are only 2,500 churches which get regular congregations of more than 100 adults.

As most of the church buildings have very long histories, the cost of maintenance can be a heavy burden on the small congregations.

"There are 12,000 listed churches which need £50 million of funding a year to keep them going," said Trevor Cooper of the Ecclesiological Society. In the rural areas, this problem is most significant, he added.

For the preservation of the body, they lament the loss of the priceless heritage in the UK. "Churches are an important part of the landscape - it's part of what England is to many of us," Crispin Truman, chief executive of the Churches Conservation Trust said.

Nowadays, the only way to keep the church is to change it more as a community space, rather than just a place of worship.

In 2003, 34 of the Church of England's 16,000 church buildings were made redundant. However, 18 new buildings were established or approved for use as churches, together with a greater number of dedicated multi-purpose and other buildings.

Many churches were renovated into concerts halls, art exhibitions, or even cafes.

"If we did this it would bring a whole lot more people who would be committed to the building. It would bring more people into the building who could then seen the benefits of the building," Truman said.