Episcopal Fold

Religion may be booming in the U.S., and Episcopalians may be as prosperous as any other Christian denomination, but last week the publishers of Episcopal Churchnews, a fortnightly for laymen, announced that the five-year-old magazine would cease publication with its Aug. 18 issue. Successor to the venerable weekly Southern Churchman, founded in 1835, Churchnews strove for a snappy, newsy approach ("Old North Church Will Wheeze No More," "Vicar's Worry: They Love 'Lucy' More Than Evensong"). But the magazine never really managed to make church trade news sound lively, and beefing up the contents with big-name articles by Historian Arnold Toynbee, Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Sportscaster Red Barber was not enough. Anonymous backers spent an estimated $650,000 trying to get Churchnews off the ground. But the publishers (the Southern Churchman Co.) could never hold more than 20,000 circulation (at $4.50 a year), which was not attractive enough to advertisers. Still in the field for Episcopal laymen: the Living Church--79 years old, circulation 17,000, yearly subscription rate $8.50.

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