More than two and a half million people attended a Church of England
service during Christmas 2011 (sic) - a rise of 14.5 per cent on the
previous year - new figures have revealed, halting a decades-long trend
of decline.Although weekly church attendance fell by 0.3 per cent to just over one million overall, rises were recorded in nearly half of the CofE's 44 dioceses - with a 1.2 per cent increase in attendance by children and young people.
The Church of England has described the figures as "heartening".
The Bishop of Norwich Graham James, said the figures indicated a "stabilising" of the numbers of those who attend church services on a weekly basis.
This follows 30 years of steady decline in Church attendance.
The statistics, which were published on Tuesday as part of the annual report on trends in the CofE, also showed that the number of infant baptisms were up 4.3 per cent, while adult baptisms increased by five per cent.