As is the sixth largest cathedral in the world, the Episcopal Church’s landmark Washington National Cathedral seats about 4,000 worshippers. Across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, Restoration Anglican Church, a congregation planted in 2009 as part of the Anglican Church in North America, has a building completed in 2014 that seats about 370.
Yet Restoration reported an Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) of 495 persons in 2022, while the National Cathedral reported 423 the same year. The Anglican parish also reports congregational giving (known as plate-and-pledge) of about twice the number of the Episcopal Cathedral, despite membership rolls of nearly twice the size (and a significant endowment) at the latter.
Neither Restoration nor the National Cathedral are broadly reflective of their respective denominations on a nationwide scale, with each listing larger-than-average congregations. But, as a local microcosm of churchgoers in a major metropolitan area, the…
