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<\/p>\nMichael Oswald, a retired teacher, has seen the streets go one by one in the shadow of the Holy Family church in Port Glasgow. It was only a matter of time before the church went too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe school and parish were together, this was the parish church. I have many great memories, but also sad memories, of times spent in this parish in connection with the school,\u201d said Oswald, who taught at St Stephen\u2019s High in the Inverclyde town.<\/p>\n
He was among the 1,000 worshippers who squeezed into the church to mark its final Mass at the turn of the year. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was driving down the road I didn\u2019t think I would be terribly emotional,\u201d he said. \u201cBut once I came here, I have to admit I was, seeing people I taught, worked with, the people who are parishioners here. Particularly when the decree was read. It struck me more than I thought it would.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis parish is very close to these people\u2019s hearts and has been for years. It\u2019s very difficult for this part of Port Glasgow. It has changed beyond recognition in a very short period historically.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember walking along the length of Parkhill Avenue outside years ago and it took hours, there were so many people outside to speak to. It was always vibrant. There were large families of young people from working-class roots wanting to do better for themselves. But the houses in the streets round about have been knocked down and there\u2019s been no replacement for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the only public building in this part of the town now, so even aside from the sadness of the parish going, it\u2019s a very sad moment for the community and the people who continue to live here. A lot of them are very affected by the situation, not just about the parish, but the whole area having changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oswald\u2019s emotions have been increasingly felt in communities across Scotland, with new statistics revealing that one church every week has closed across all denominations over the past five years.<\/p>\n
The numbers, compiled by the charity Scotland\u2019s Churches Trust, show 329 churches have closed since 2020, with nine closing their doors in the last fortnight. <\/p>\n
Almost 300 Church of Scotland churches have closed, with four Episcopal churches and six United Free churches, according to the findings. <\/p>\n
In addition, more than 20 Catholic churches have closed in Scotland since 2015, with 15 closing within the past five years, according to separate figures from the Bishops\u2019 Conference of Scotland.<\/p>\n
These show there were more closures of Catholic churches in Lanarkshire\u2019s Motherwell diocese than in any other part of the country in the last decade. Argyll & the Isles was the only diocese to record no closures in the same period.<\/p>\n
Three Catholic churches have closed in Aberdeen diocese since 2020 and the same number in Glasgow since 2015. Four have closed in the diocese of Galloway and in St Andrews & Edinburgh, since 2017 and 2018 respectively. The diocese of Dunkeld has lost one church since 2018.<\/p>\n
Dr DJ Johnston-Smith, director of Scotland\u2019s Churches Trust, said closures particularly affected communities outside large urban areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pattern is both urban and rural, but rural Scotland appears to be hardest hit because congregations are far apart and the maintenance of a traditional 18th-century rural building is quite heavy, with only a handful of the congregation left to pay for its upkeep,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The most recent closure recorded by the Bishops\u2019 Conference was that of Holy Family in Port Glasgow, one of two churches to close in Inverclyde in the same week, the other being Greenock\u2019s United Reformed Church.<\/p>\n
May Stevenson, 90, grew up in Port Glasgow, going to Mass in a local Hibernian hall, then in a Nissen hut in the town\u2019s cemetery. When the Holy Family church was finally built, designed in the late 1950s by the renowned architects Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, her late husband Phil helped construct the altar wall.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
May Stevenson and her daughter Linda<\/p>\n
PAUL ENGLISH<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to be here, but it was sad,\u201d she said, recalling her family\u2019s historical connection with the church. \u201cIt was very emotional tonight. I was a cleaner here and worked in the hall. But everything goes on. Life goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnston-Smith pointed to an increasingly secularised society as part of the reason for the closures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe raised the alarm bell nationally a few years ago that there would be potentially 500 by 2025,\u201d he said. \u201cThe number is mercifully a little bit less than that but it\u2019s well over 300 that have closed between 2020 and 2025 and that comes in at over one a week over that period.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig congregations have dwindled and census data shows the country has secularised. A church which might have once attracted the entire community is no longer doing so; 18th-century churches once had 300 people coming every Sunday, now some have less than ten. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo as well as a congregational drop, the volunteers who are required to run the church are either no longer there or are so elderly they can\u2019t do what they once did.\u201d<\/p>\n