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Prodigy, 21, about to become doctor
MINNEAPOLIS, July 6 (UPI) -- The Presbyterian Church (USA) has dropped to half the number of members it had in 1965, a report last week said.
The church, based in Louisville, Ky., the largest of the Presbyterian groups in the United States, had 4.25 million members in 1965. The Office of the General Assembly reported last week there are now 2,077,138 enrolled members, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.
The loss of members is continuing, with numbers falling 3 percent between 2008 and 2009. About 40 congregations left as groups, some of them joining more conservative Presbyterian churches.
"What continues to sadden me is that the overwhelming majority of the loss in membership is in the category of 'other,' which means these are brothers and sisters in Christ who did not die or transfer to another congregation, but probably quietly slipped out the back door," the Rev. Gradye Parsons, stated clerk for the church, said in a statement.
Other mainline Protestant denominations have seen the same loss of members in recent decades.
The church's annual General Assembly began Saturday in Minneapolis.
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