THE Anglican Church has the highest number of churches in Australia, despite falling behind other Churches in terms of weekly attendance, a study released by the National Church Life Survey (NCLS) says.

The study, Pulse Check 2021 to 2024, says that there were 2527 Anglican congregations across the country in 2021; the next highest is the Uniting Church, with 1628.

In all, 1.3 million Australians, out of a population of 27.4 million, attend church weekly. Anglican weekly attendance figures, at 118,000, were considerably below the weekly attendance for the largest Pentecostal denomination, Australian Christian Churches (ACC), formerly the Assemblies of God, which recorded 191,500 across 1082 congregations.

The ACC is now the second largest denomination in Australia, behind the Roman Catholic Church, which, with a weekly attendance of 572,000, accounted for 44 per cent of the total. The ACC was fifth place in 2001, when the Anglican Church was the second largest denomination. The Anglican Church is now in fourth place behind the Baptist Church; it was the third largest in 2016.

The study shows that the greatest growth since NCLS Research began collecting attendance figures in 1991 has been in the Pentecostal Churches, increasing 252 per cent.

The executive director of NCLS Research, Dr Ruth Powell, said that the Anglican Church was the most embedded in local communities of any denomination. Part of its struggles with failing attendance was partly because of its heavy presence in regional areas affected by rural population decline, she said.