According to the study, only 12 per cent of Britons feel they"belong" to a church, compared with just 52 per cent in France; and Britain has one of the highest rates of"fuzzy faith" or people who have an abstract belief in God.
The study, which is based on a survey by the European Union and questioned over 30,000 people in 22 countries, found five nations Slovenia, Sweden, Norway, Holland and Belgium - reported lower levels of church membership than Britain.
Prof David Voas of Manchester University, who led the project, said Britain was involved in a "long process of disestablishment", with Christianity gradually being written out of laws and political institutions." Christian faith will soon have no role among our traditional establishments or lawmakers. It remains to be seen for example, how much longer bishops will be allowed to sit in the House of Lords."
Fuzzy faith is a staging post on the road to non-religion. Adults still have childhood memories of being taken to church, and they maintain a nostalgic affection for Christianity but that is dying out.
" They still go along with the some kind of religious identity but they're not passing it on to the next generation, and people who aren't raised in a religion don't generally start one as adults," he told'The Daily Telegraph'.