The Rev Leonard Payne has increased his usual congregation of between 15 and 20 churchgoers to an audience of 2,300. His 30-minute sermons have proved particularly popular with internet users in Australia and America. He originally posted the sermons on the internet to ensure that worshippers who were unable to attend church could listen to them. But the reponse was so great that he has developed his own website.

Mr Payne, 56, has been the vicar of St Nicholas in Wrentham, Suffolk, for seven years and said that, despite the popularity of the online sermons, he had no plans to give up his church and become a “virtual vicar”. He said: “This could be my 15 minutes of fame. I just hope it goes on for a bit longer than that. People are leaving the church in droves and we are trying to put our message across in different ways.”

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