Nick Tolson, the co-ordinator of National Churchwatch, an organisation that advises clergy on security, said violence and intimidation against churchgoers was spiralling in some parts.

Urban areas such as Merseyside have been badly hit, with an average of an assault, robbery or arson attack carried out in one of its 1,400 places of worship every day.

But the incidents of violence, which had risen by a third over the past five years, were not confined to inner cities, he said.

A recent spate of attacks in Jersey had made it one of the most precarious postings in the Church, while a vicar in Somerset had a brick thrown at him by a group of youths during a funeral.

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