The number of people going to Church of England services has risen year-on-year but remains lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Average weekly attendance was 654,000 people last year, up from 605,000 people in 2021, according to the church’s latest statistical report.
In 2019, the figure was 854,000. This fell to 345,000 people in 2020 – the year of the pandemic.
The number of regular worshippers was 984,000 last year, up from 966,000 in 2021 but down from 1.1 million in 2019, the church said.
The proportion of churches providing so-called “church at home” services – described as online, phone, post and email – allowing those who could not attend in person to continue their worship, fell from 51% in October 2021 to 36% in October 2022.
Churches did everything they could to return to normal life in 2022 following the huge disruption of 2020 and 2021 caused by the pandemic
Dr Ken Eames, author of the Statistics for Mission 2022 report, said: “Churches did everything they could to return to normal life in 2022 following the huge disruption of 2020 and 2021 caused by the pandemic.
“But 2022 was not free of its impact, indeed official figures suggest that Covid rates were higher in October 2022 than in 2021.
“Although for many people things were getting back to normal, churches were still experiencing Covid-related disruption.”
The report said it was impossible to “quantify precisely the effect of this disruption on Church of England attendance and participation figures”.
