Episcopal Church reports decade-long decline in membership
Faith & Religion
by Liz Lykins
Post Date:
October 19, 2026
Episcopal Church reports decade-long decline in membership
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The Cathedral of St. Philip, an Episcopal church in Atlanta John Phelan via New Georgia Encyclopedia
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The Episcopal Church reported a decades-long decline in membership in new data released Thursday. The mainline protestant denomination said its membership decreased from nearly 2 million in 2015 to 1.4 million in 2025. The number also marked a decline from the 1.5 million members it reported in 2023. The dropping numbers signalled a trend that has persisted for decades, according to the church’s report. The research was conducted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. In its previous report, the denomination did not give a membership total for 2024.
Despite the slow decline, the Episcopal Church lauded that the data showed continued post-pandemic stabilization for attendance and finances. For instance, in-person Sunday worship attendance went down by around 32% since 2015. But 2025 reported a weekly attendance of 407,000, up from the 300,000 reported in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What else did the report find?
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The denomination said it has nearly 6,700 parishes. -
The number of baptisms, confirmations, and receptions all fell. -
The data found that the median age of church members was 60. -
The median in-person Sunday attendance for churches was 37 people.
Dig deeper: Read R. Albert Mohler Jr.’s piece for WORLD Opinions on what he called the collapse of the Episcopal Church.
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Liz is a reporter covering breaking news and First Amendment freedoms for WORLD. She is a World Journalism Institute graduate and earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and Spanish from Ball State University. She and her husband currently reside in Raleigh, N.C.
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