The Washington Times has declared Washington National Cathedral to be the District of Columbia’s newest mega-church. Due to the pandemic the cathedral has 30,000 on-line viewers.
The District’s newest megachurch doesn’t have a smoke machine, praise band or rock concert-style musical numbers.
But livestreaming daily prayer services and Sunday worship has allowed the Washington National Cathedral to attract 30,000 weekly worshippers online, nearly 10 times its sanctuary’s seating capacity.
“We became more of a ‘national’ cathedral when we were forced to close our doors,” said the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, the dean, or chief resident cleric, at the cathedral. … “I had always wanted to build a sort of a digital cathedral, to have a presence outside,” he added. “Our building is incredible and we’d love it when people come to the cathedral, but to also be the cathedral ‘beyond the walls.’ I thought we would take five years to do it. But when the pandemic hit, we had to take about five weeks to do it.”