Episcopal churches prepare for traditional surge in attendance for Holy Week, Easter

[Episcopal News Service] The Very Rev. Lisa Hackney-James knows her problem is a good one to have. It’s a printing dilemma: How many bulletins will be enough for Easter Sunday at St. James Episcopal Cathedral in Chicago, Illinois?

Like most Episcopal congregations, attendance at St. James surges on Easter, when the holy day draws many people who don’t worship regularly on other Sundays. The same goes for Christmas, another holy day central to the Christian faith. “The last thing we want to do is have them show up and say we’re out of bulletins,” Hackney-James, St. James’ dean, told Episcopal News Service.

For clergy and lay leaders planning Holy Week services, it’s tempting to “pull out all the stops” and impress visitors with grand liturgies and rousing sermons, the Rev. Robert Picken said, but as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Rochester, New York, “the thing I’ve learned is to be consistent all year around.”

“I think visitors, in particular on Christmas and Easter, should sort of see what your parish is and get a sense of that,” Picken told ENS.

Congregations across The Episcopal Church are busy this week preparing to welcome regular worshippers, friends, relatives and new visitors to their Holy Week services, culminating in Easter Sunday, which falls this year on April 20. And although The Episcopal Church and most other mainline Protestant denominations are experiencing long-term declines in Sunday attendance, the Easter surge is still a reliable phenomenon in Episcopal pews, with churchwide numbers more than doubling that day, according to parochial report data.

Average Sunday attendance, one of the most closely tracked and debated metrics in the church’s parochial reports, totaled a combined 386,000 for all Episcopal congregations in 2023, continuing a rebound from the church’s pandemic lows. That same year, according to the latest available data, churchwide Easter attendance totaled 921,000. Christmas services were somewhat higher, with 976,000 worshipers.

Easter historically was the only single day tracked by the church’s parochial reports, which all congregations and dioceses are required to file annually. The parochial reports first began collecting data on Christmas attendance in 2022.

Easter attendance has declined by about 33% in the past decade, down from nearly 1.4 million in 2014. The Easter decline, however, is slightly less proportionally than the 36% drop in year-round attendance, from a weekly average of 600,000 in 2014 to 366,000 in 2023.

And some congregations, like St. James in Chicago, say they are expecting an increase in Easter attendance this year, as more long-time members have resumed in-person worship routines that had been disrupted by the pandemic and new worshipers are seeking spiritual solace and community at a time of social and political upheaval.

“This is a year where we I would say we’re back in full force,” Hackney-James, the Chicago dean, said. The cathedral logged average Sunday attendance of 355 in 2024, eclipsing its pre-pandemic levels, she said. Interest in the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services has continued to grow this year.

The cathedral offers an Easter Vigil service Saturday night, and three services on Easter Sunday. Those services topped 1,000 worshipers last year, and the congregation is printing extra bulletins this year in anticipation of up to 1,200 people.

“My sense is that more people are coming to church seeking peace and centering,” the dean said. “Folks are feeling unsettled in general, because of our broader context, and are coming seeking a sense of connection to God and one another and a sense of grounding in something that is deeper than the current circumstances.” She specifically cited escalating tensions related to American politics.

The Rev. Amanda Gerken-Nelson said she senses a similar yearning for spiritual connections among the newer worshipers attending services in Yarmouth, Maine, where she is rector of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church. In addition to the current political climate, she wonders if renewed interest in church attendance also is related to what has been described as a loneliness epidemic in the United States.

“When I get together with the ecumenical clergy, all of us are experiencing growth in some way,” Gerken-Nelson said.

Average attendance now ranges from 75 to 85 at St. Bartholomew’s single Sunday service. Last Easter, congregational leaders were surprised when the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection drew about 180 worshippers.

“We weren’t prepared for the crowd that came,” Gerken-Nelson said. “Our ushers were setting up folding chairs, to the point that I got nervous that they would be blocking some egresses.”

Last Christmas, turnout reached about 250, and for this Easter, the church is planning for up to 200 worshippers. Gerken-Nelson also insisted that those visitors who may only come once or twice a year are just as welcome as those who worship every Sunday.

“There is an aspect of our faith that recognizes that it is a practice, that faith is deepened with practice,” she said. “And I think that also, as a church, it does no good to demean the faithful practices of people who may only come on Christmas or Easter.”

Picken, the rector in Rochester, said Easter can be an opportunity to share the Gospel’s uplifting message – hope over despair – to people who might not always be in the pews to hear it on other Sundays.

“Especially in this time, it’s important to convey the sense of new life, the sense of hope and the sense of joy, in a world where we’re not really seeing that,” he said.

Picken also underscored that planning the Easter celebration is a collaborative effort, not just the work of the priest. “A lot of attention gets paid to the ‘busyness’ of clergy,” he said. “I think sometimes that overshadows the hard work of the lay staff and the many volunteer parishioners, especially our altar guild and musicians who put in a lot of time during Holy Week.”

In addition to Easter, Episcopal clergy, church staff and volunteers are planning for expanded schedules of Holy Week services and activities, especially the trio of Triduum services: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Gerken-Nelson says she prefers to see Holy Week as a kind of “weeklong worship service” from Palm Sunday to Easter.

At St. James in Chicago, the Holy Saturday service at 8 p.m. will be followed by a potluck dinner. St. Paul’s in Rochester is offering Holy Eucharist every day this week, in addition to the Triduum services and Easter Sunday.

And at Christ Episcopal Church in Temple, Texas, the Rev. Keith Pozzuto is producing daily online video reflections while opening the church at certain hours for quiet prayer and reflection. On Holy Thursday, the church will host an agape meal in addition to the traditional Last Supper liturgy that includes foot washing and the stripping of the altar.

“People really enjoy getting together,” Pozzuto, Christ Episcopal’s rector, said in an ENS interview. “People enjoy the food, the fellowship and then the somberness after that.”

Christ Episcopal has an average Sunday attendance of about 150, and that number typically rises to 300 or more on Easter. An egg hunt for young families is planned for the time between the 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. Easter services. The congregation starts planning the services several weeks in advance, Pozzuto said. “Everyone steps up and everyone’s really welcoming.”

Pozzuto has been rector at Christ Episcopal for three years and a parish priest for 15. Each year, he said, he reminds himself not to rush through Lent and Holy Week but to experience the season and Easter as Jesus’ disciples first did, with daily mystery and wonder. His habit is to wait until Holy Saturday to write his Easter Sunday sermon.

“I want to make sure I feel what the disciples felt – the loss, the struggle – to kind of walk with them through that experience,” he said. “You’ve got to stay centered in the meaning of every day.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.