THE Church of England's cathedrals seem to be doing something right. The reported rise in attendance at their services in the past year continues a trend since 2002. The main boost has come from midweek services: 8900 in 2002 to 16,800 in 2012; and there has been encouraging growth in the numbers of children and young people who attend educational events; in volunteering; and in attendance at public and civil events. While attendance at Christmas and during Advent shows a marked increase over the decade, the figures for communicants at Easter and Christmas show a different pattern. Communions last year were 32,200 and 27,500 respectively, representing 27 per cent and 50 per cent of total attendance at all services. These figures have been less variable year by year over the decade, and less dependent on the day of the week on which Christmas falls. As for occasional offices, the number of funerals has remained constant, but weddings have risen. (The fall in blessings after marriage probably reflects changed marriage discipline).

All this suggests that the emphasis on special services and events that target different sections of the community is a strategy that works. The rise in volunteers suggests that the perception that cathedrals win out over parish churches because of the ease with which one can worship anonymously or without being "roped in" to help is probably part of, but not the whole, story. If you enter a cathedral for the first or second time, no one will ask whether you play the organ, or would mind taking up the collection. Nevertheless, the fulfilment to be found in volunteering is clearly an attraction. No doubt it helps that the opportunities are varied and likely to be well organised, and that volunteers are able to enjoy large congregations, prestigious associations, and competence in liturgy, music, and preaching.

Cathedrals should ask why they do not generate more communicants: nurture in the sacramental life cannot be a peripheral matter. And the spiritual welfare of cathedral musicians, vergers, and others on the staff is often a cause for concern. Is their pastoral care all that it should be? Growth also has to be seen in the context of decline in parishes. How many in the cathedral's community have arrived there disillusioned with parish life? While a cathedral booms, churchwardens and other volunteers not far away will be stretched. Half a century or so ago, the parish-communion movement envisaged a retreat from the cathedral model of worship beloved of the Victorians. But there are places now where it is no longer a question of just no robed choir: no music of any standard, little dignity, and increasingly no reliability about the celebration of holy communion. The cathedral success story cries out for the kind of research that is far more than a matter of statistics.