According to data available so far, attendance at Anglican Church of Canada Easter and Christmas services rose by 41 and 50 per cent respectively in 2023, even while average Sunday attendance fell by nine per cent over the same period—substantially faster than the decline of about 2.5 per cent per year before the pandemic, says the church’s statistics officer, Canon Neil Elliot.
Attendance statistics for 2023 are the most recent available as it typically takes dioceses some time to gather, consolidate and report data from all of their parishes. Even so, only 26 of 30 dioceses had reported their 2023 attendance numbers as of early January. Where data were not available, Elliot used 2022 numbers to complete the picture, meaning the numbers may be different in the final tally.
The figures for Christmas and Easter, Elliot says, are still 20 and 26 per cent below 2017 levels, suggesting the bounce-back has not reversed the overall trend of decline. Still, they represent more of a recovery than he had expected from the pandemic-era low points of 2020 and 2021. When he released the 2022 statistics, Elliot said he thought it was unlikely the church would see much more of an increase in attendance, as it seemed safe to assume that people who wanted to return to church after COVID-19 shutdowns had done so. But the surprising increase in holy day attendance in 2023, he says, is evidence the church remains in an unpredictable time.
The numbers of church members listed on parish rolls and of identifiable givers donating money have remained stable since 2020. Some of these data offer hope while others are cause for concern, says Elliot—adding up to a somewhat unclear picture. This lack of clarity isn’t surprising, he says, given the effect of the pandemic.
“That’s what a radical discontinuity does,” he says. “It creates a whole bunch of noise and it takes a while for everything to settle down into a new pattern.”
Knowing that Christmas and Easter are likely to be days when people who do not come the rest of the year attend a service, he says, parishes can be proactive about giving them reasons to attend regularly.
“I totally think [parishes] should be jumping on the wave, because there are people still coming back to church,” says Elliot. “It is encouraging that the number on parish rolls is staying stable, so the people are out there. The question is: how do we turn the occasional attendance and the membership into regular attendance?”
Elliot emphasizes that attendance trends differ—often dramatically—from one diocese to the next. While some are experiencing growth, others are seeing even faster decline.
While it is encouraging to see the church is gathering people in for holidays and retaining its donors, he says the church can’t ignore the drop in average attendance.
“The good news is the fact that we are still in this radical discontinuity and we know the outcome is not settled yet,” he says. “But we are still in a situation where average Sunday attendance is in decline. If that is the main statistic that we need to pay attention to—if we are a church that’s about people coming to church as our core activity—then we are still in a very challenged position.”
