Thousands of churches face closure in ten years
Thousands of churches face closure, demolition or conversion in the next decade, leading to the demise of some branches of Christianity in Europe, according to experts.
In some parts of the country, former churches are being turned into centres of worship for other faiths. A disused Methodist chapel in Clitheroe on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales is the latest, destined to become a mosque for the town’s 300 Muslims.
There are more than 47,000 churches in Britain today, and 42 million people, more than 70 per cent of the population, consider themselves to be Christian. It sounds a lot, but behind the figures lies a story of decline in the country’s established religion.
Although the Pentecostal and Evangelical branches of Christianity are growing, worshippers often prefer modern, functional, warehouse-style buildings to the traditional neo-Gothic landscape of British ecclesiastical architecture.
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