David Walker, the bishop of Manchester, is chairing a review of the C of E’s priorities and organisational structures for the next 10 years.
The church has a history of closing redundant churches, but in January the Guardian reported that Bishop Walker told an online briefing organised by the Religion Media Centre: “I suspect the pace will increase as a result of Covid.”
The Church Times reports that parishes have lost £40m during the first 10 months of 2020, a drop of almost 8% on the same period in the previous year. As well as a fall in collections at services, parishes have lost fees for weddings and the hiring out of church buildings.
The bishop said: “If I had a list of what sort of church is the one that’s most likely to require closure, I’d be thinking typically of a mid-Victorian building that was built to last a century … But the physical structure is tired, it is very large, and there isn’t the community around it that there was when it was built … They were built to serve populations that just don’t exist [now].”
He added: dioceses could be amalgamated, and older clergy “might choose to go [retire] sooner rather than later”, as a way of cutting costs.
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The Emerging Church 