The Right Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London and the Church’s third most senior bishop, is calling on the Government to stop treating the Church as a “museum piece” and to recognise its contribution to modern Britain.

“It’s not apocalypse now but it is limited apocalypse soon,” he said. “If no extra money is forthcoming we will see a spate of church closures and losses to whole communities of buildings that cannot be sustained.”

The bishop compared the £26 million English Heritage and Heritage Lottery grants that the Church receives to spend on just a few of its 13,000 listed churches to the £23.1 million Arts Council grant to the Royal Opera House alone.

The Church has an annual repair bill of £120 million, but there is a £373 million backlog of repairs. To meet new laws on disabled access will cost each church an average of £49,000.

Most of the funds are raised by the Church’s army of volunteers, its congregations. For 25 years, they have kept the buildings standing, to be of benefit not just to Sunday worshippers but also to mother and toddler, yoga, judo and other coffee, children’s and sports clubs that use them during the week. The bishop said that the Church could not continue for much longer to provide such free services to the nation.

Bishop Chartres said that the Government could be certain that the Church’s predicament was serious. “Some of our medieval jewels — churches in rural areas serving small communities — are where help is needed fast,” he said.

The Church needs £55 million a year from government and is the “most disestablished in Europe”. French cathedrals are maintained by the State and German churches benefit from a secular tax system.

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