Catholics overtake Anglican congregations

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Church of England services are no longer Britain's most popular form of worship and have been overtaken by Catholic mass, a study by the organisation Christian Research has found.

The large number of EU nationals from Eastern Europe who have immigrated to the UK in recent years have swelled the numbers attending masses across the country.

Estimates for church attendances in 2006, based on previous years' figures, reveal 861,800 Catholics attended services every Sunday compared with 852,500 Anglican worshippers.

Peter Brierley, former executive director of Christian Research, who helped compile the data due to be published in the new year, said: "Part of the reason for the increase is you have got large numbers of immigrants coming in from Catholic countries especially Poland.

"There's been a substantial number of Poles coming in and 85% of them are Catholic so that's going to boost your numbers."

The study comes as former prime minister Tony Blair announced he has converted to Catholicism following a ceremony where he was welcomed into the denomination by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor - leader of the Roman Catholics in England and Wales.

The Church of England said in September that church attendance figures had been relatively stable since 2000.

Previous figures suggest that around 1.7 million people attend Church of England church and cathedral worship each month, while around 1.2 million attend services each week - on Sunday or during the week - and just under one million each Sunday.

Mr Brierly added that explaining the decline of Church of England congregations revealed a mixed picture as the pronounced drop in numbers over recent decades had slowed in the last few years.