Episcopal Church Loses 200,000 Members Since 2004, Primarily Due to "Internal Conflicts"

Domestic membership in the Episcopal Church dropped by three percent in 2008, continuing a decline in which the denomination has lost some 200,000 American members since 2004, according to Episcopalian researchers.

The Episcopal Church now counts slightly more than two million members in about 7,000 U.S. parishes.

Matilda Kistler, who heads a state-of-the-church committee in the denomination's House of Deputies, said, "We find ourselves facing a society that is gravitating toward secularism. We also believe that the church-going segment of the public is aging significantly."

Kistler acknowledged that "internal conflicts within the Episcopal Church have also distracted from the message of hope our clergy and lay leaders seek to share."

In 2003, the church consecrated an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, causing a furor among conservative Episcopalians and the global Anglican Communion, which counts the Episcopal Church as its U.S. branch. Four dioceses and dozens of parishes have since left the Episcopal Church, some to join a rival denomination, the Anglican Church in North America.