The number of Anglican and Catholic churchgoers attending Sunday services appears to be stabilising after years of decline, according to new research.

Roman Catholics who attend mass outnumber Anglican worshippers but the gap between the two denominations appears to be closing, a study by the organisation Christian Research has found.

In 1979 when the organisation began calculating attendances figures for churches in England, 1,991,000 Catholics attended Sunday mass compared to 1,671,000 Anglicans. Almost two decades later in 1998 another census found the numbers stood at 1,230,100 compared to 980,600 respectively.

Estimates for worshippers in 2006, based on previous years’ figures, suggest 861,800 Catholics attended mass every Sunday, compared to 893,100 in 2005, while 852,500 Anglicans went to Sunday services last year down 18,100 on 2005.

A Church of England spokesman said attendance figures for Anglicans had generally stabilised since 2000 but he stressed a large number of people went to church throughout the week and not just at the weekend. He said: “To just look at Sunday attendance figures, which are disputed, its difficult to get a clear picture. For Anglicans it’s not just about Sunday attendance ... In England 1.7 million attend church every month on average and 990,000 on an average Sunday. Midweek we have 180,000 people worshipping that reflects today’s society.”

In recent years those attending Roman Catholic mass have been swelled by large numbers of EU nationals from Eastern Europe who have settled to the UK. Peter Brierley, a former executive director of Christian Research, who helped compile the data due to be published in the new year, said: “There’s been a substantial number of Poles coming in and 85 per cent of them are Catholic so that’s going to boost your numbers.”

The CoE spokesman said the stabilisation in attendance figures was down to a number of factors including the creation of new forms of church to welcome people who would not normally attend. The CoE and Methodist Church had set up 5,000 ’Fresh Expression’ projects to attract people, these ranged from mother and toddler churches to services aimed at the ’Goth’ youth group.