A LACK of priests will force a village church to close after more than half a century. The Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Forest will hold its final mass on Christmas day.
The Forest Row church has relied on the help of retired priests, some of whom are in their 80s, following a shortage in recent years.
Father Steven Purnell said: "We don't have enough priests for the amount of buildings we have."
Mr Purnell has been at the church, in Hartfield Road, for around eight years, but also conducts services at the Church of Our Lady and St Peter in East Grinstead and the Church of St Bernard in Lingfield.
"I think it's sad that the community will be broken up," he added. "In a perfect world it wouldn't close, because it's a nice little community. But the reality is, I can't rely on the elderly priests to continue and I can't be in two places at once."
The church was built in the 1950s as a daughter church of East Grinstead following a rise in vocations after the second world war.
In recent years, it has had a consistent number of worshippers, with between 40 and 90 attending the weekly services.
Its most notable visitor was John F. Kennedy, who attended mass in 1963 while he stayed at Birch Grove, in Chelwood Gate, with the then Prime Minister Harold McMillan.
Following the president's death later that year, a memorial plaque was placed in the church and a mass is held in his memory each year on June 30.
The future of the church building has not yet been decided.
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