As we move into 2026, where is the Episcopal Church? It showed a limited recovery after COVID, and new data (from 2024) has been released, allowing a sense of the church’s post-COVID trajectory.
The Overall Picture
The staff in the church’s Research and Statistics Department does an excellent job, but it released less data this year. While conclusions are harder to make, they are still possible.
Average Sunday Attendance in domestic parishes
2019 518,000
2022 349,000
2023 386,000
2024 387,000
In-person attendance on Sundays rose very slightly in 2024, but this was markedly smaller than the rise in 2023. The church remains over 25 percent smaller than it was pre-COVID. To achieve even this recovery reflects commendable work by many parishes and clergy. A minority of vigorous parishes persists, but the post-COVID bounce that raised attendance in 2022 and 2023 is over.
Other data for the Episcopal Church as a whole (not just domestic parishes) show a denomination that looks to be aging and shrinking. The church had 6,707 parishes/missions open in 2024 (47 down from 2023) and baptized 19,624 people in 2024 (down slightly compared to 2023, although that figure may obscure a greater fall because of the performance of dioceses outside of the United States). The church confirmed 12,600 people (down a long way from 2023).
The shrinking number of churches shows that efforts at church-planting have made little difference. Beyond that, the new data included a significant table of languages used in worship. While there is some linguistic variety, it is limited, given the diversity of the American population. For example, only two churches offer worship in Igbo, one of the main languages of Nigeria, which hundreds of thousands of Americans speak, whereas rather more (seven) parishes offer worship in Latin.
There have been significant attempts to gauge online worship. But it requires much more research before true significance can be determined. Other metrics (such as the falling number of baptisms) suggest it is a mistake to paint online churchgoing in overly rosy colors.
Geographical Variation
The East and West Coast provinces are the worst performing of the church’s provinces across the last ten years, by some distance. Provinces IV and VII did better, but still dropped nearly 30 percent in the last decade. The Diocese of Los Angeles stands out, its Sunday attendance being halved between 2015 and 2024. This is double the rate of decline of Dallas, which shrank by a quarter in the same period.
In 2015, 17 domestic dioceses had a Sunday attendance of over 10,000; by 2024, only four did. A comparison of the trajectories of the largest dioceses in 2015 gives a sense both of the extent and variation of their decline. All have declined, but East and West Coast dioceses have declined to a markedly greater extent.
Largest dioceses in the U.S. (by Average Sunday Attendance)
Comparison of attendance: 2015 2024
Texas 24,528 18,114
Virginia 22,671 15,535
New York 16,878 9,486
Los Angeles 15,712 8,459
Massachusetts 15,149 9,746
Atlanta 14,967 10,438
North Carolina 13,912 10,517
And there are variations in COVID’s effects at a provincial level. Province VII was smaller than Province VIII before COVID, but significantly larger than Province VIII by 2024, though both have shrunk.
A different variable is in how attendance compares to wider population shifts. The U.S. population doubled in the last 70 years, and some towns and cities have exploded in size. Consider Charlotte, North Carolina:
Population of Charlotte
1950 134,000
2000 541,000
2023 (est.) 911,000
Charlotte has grown hugely in the post-war period and that momentum continues, but it has few Episcopal parishes. We could say the same of Raleigh, Orlando, San Antonio, and many other cities. The Episcopal Church has great opportunities on its doorstep, if it will take them.
If you visit Philadelphia, you’ll find lots of Episcopal churches, but in Charlotte—not so much. Left Behind is a series of popular apocalyptic novels, but it’s title describes many parts of the Episcopal Church as the American population doubled in the last 70 years.
The Episcopal Church had a very impressive tradition of church-planting up to the 1950s. This largely ended in the 1960s. But the church could recover that tradition. Demographics show there is huge potential opportunity to found new Episcopal churches.
Overall
The church’s post-COVID bounce is over. Its Sunday attendance did not shrink in 2024, but by other key measures it is in decline. The drop in baptisms and confirmations should be of particular concern. And this decline is the more striking because the American population is growing rapidly by number and diversity.
There are many Africans who have migrated to the United States, including many Anglican Africans. But very few of them are finding their way to the Episcopal Church. Given the paucity of church planting in America’s many burgeoning cities, that is not entirely surprising. But this, in turn, means a significant opportunity is there for those willing to seize it.
The Rev. Dr. David Goodhew is vicar of St. Barnabas Church, Middlesbrough, England, and visiting fellow of St John’s College, Durham University.
