Canon laws, which have been in the books for centuries, require churches to hold services every Sunday. In the morning and in the evening.
But there’s a hitch.
Attendance is declining. And there are just way too many churches.
So the Church of England is now thinking of scrapping that law — particularly because many parishes are failing to hold services at all of their churches and consequently, are breaking the law.
“For decades, ever since we started having parishes with more than one church, it has been humanly impossible for the clergy to get around to all of them every Sunday,” a Church of England spokesman told CNN. “[So] according to canon law those clergy and those parishes are breaking canon law and it would be impossible for them not to.”
Earlier this year the Church published its 2014 attendance statistics which revealed there was a 12% decline in attendance over the decade and that only 2% of England’s population attended services.
But the Church of England’s spokesman denied the changes were to do with declining number in church attendances and said it was “purely to do with normalizing the current situation.”