DUIN: Episcopal Church losing members

Julia Duin
Sunday, October 26, 2008

Several people told me I needed to check out columnist George Will's recent column on the fading away of the Episcopal Church, once "America's upper crust at prayer," as he termed it.
His depressing statistics actually were out of date.

The denomination sunk to 2.1 million active, baptized members in 2006, down from 2.4 million. Average Sunday attendance is 765,326, one-third of the membership. Sixty-three percent of its congregations have fewer than 100 people attend Sunday morning services.

By the end of 2006, there were 7,095 parishes and missions, down 60 congregations from the previous year. During that same period, membership dropped 2 percent, which works out to 50,804 people leaving the church -- 1,000 a week. the rest