Let's do the numbers ...

...as they say on Marketplace.

On February 23, Bishop Robert Duncan wrote a pastoral letter to his diocese regarding the Primates' Meeting. The letter contained the following paragraph, stating that among those matters considered by the Primates were:

Statistics bearing out the assertion that the Network and Windsor Dioceses, together with AMiA, CANA, and Network Convocation and Conference parishes across the country, represented a number equal to one-quarter of The Episcopal Church’s membership, minimally some 500,000 souls, a number larger than 18 Provinces of the Anglican Communion.

That paragraph has sparked some fearsome ecclesial number-crunching, and given the way these things usually run, in a few days I expect some reporter to ask me to explain it to them. So, a few links.

If you ever need figures on the Episcopal Church, the first place to look is here  on the Research and Statistics page, down at the bottom where it says "Parochial Report Data."

It is to be assumed that Bishop Duncan used the 2005 Red Book Table of Statistics by Prov. & Diocese in compiling his data.

The Via Media trio of Deimel, Gundersen and Wilkins has produced "A Modest Analysis" of the Pittsburgh chart, here. There's a PDF here.

Simon Sarmiento of Thinking Anglicans entered the discussion here.

As does Mark Harris+ of Preludium, here and here.