Christian Science church sets deep cuts

The Christian Science church in Boston said yesterday it has cut its annual $190 million budget by almost half, reduced its staff by 40 percent, and will vacate two of its three headquarters buildings on the church's renowned Back Bay campus.

As part of a major retrenchment, the church will also sell two former homes of founder Mary Baker Eddy. The Eddy homes, in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Newton and in Lynn, were used as museums until about two years ago.

But they need millions of dollars in improvements to be open to the public, were drawing only about 2,100 visitors a year, and cost $700,000 a year to maintain, Phil Davis, manager of the Committees on Publication, the department that speaks for the church, said in an interview.

''We see that continued ownership of these properties would distract us from our focus today," Nathan Talbot, the chairman of the church's board, said in a statement.

The church, whose full name is The First Church of Christ, Scientist, is drastically cutting expenses to adjust to declining revenues and membership. It is also reallocating more of the funds it has toward its spiritual and teaching mission.

Officials said the church also will sell a small office building in Washington, D.C. The building houses the Washington bureau of the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, which is owned by the church and will be relocated.

Founded 127 years ago in Boston on the principle of healing through prayer rather than medicine, the church has services structured around readings from the Bible and from Eddy's interpretations of scripture, from a book called ''Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures." Many members choose to forgo modern medical procedures.

As with other established, traditional churches, Christian Science's attendance has declined, church executives acknowledge, though as a policy they do not release numbers. Memberships of some evangelical and conservative churches have grown in recent years.

Nancy T. Ammerman, a professor of sociology of religion at Boston University, said that as medicine has improved, the Christian Science church has had an increasingly difficult time persuading people that prayer is an adequate substitute. In addition, she said, ''Lots of other churches are now emphasizing healing, with spiritual healing seen as a complement to medical treatment. So Christian Science has suffered some fairly steep competition for the last 30-40 years."

Church executives said yesterday the institution has assets of more than $600 million, two endowments totaling $150 million, and no debt. But after 10 years of annual budgets in the black, the church's expenses exceeded its revenue in 2003 by $8 million, and in 2004, by $30 million.

The church put more than $100 million into building a new library and renovating its Back Bay complex over the last decade.

It attempted to get into both television and radio broadcasting in the 1980s but pulled back from TV in 1992 and radio operations in 1997 when they were not profitable. It has also set the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, which had received millions of dollars in subsidies, on a course to be self-sufficient by 2009.

The church's board began a cost-cutting program about three years ago, eventually laying off or outsourcing the work of 341 employees worldwide.

The church disclosed yesterday that in 2005 the red ink was down to $4.2 million. As of February, 10 months into the 2006 fiscal year, revenues are exceeding expenses by about $6 million.

''That picture has stabilized," Ned Odegaard, treasurer, said yesterday. The church now employs 532 people, excluding some temporary workers.

The real estate plans reflect the latest efforts by the church to reduce costs, and the full extent of the other budget cuts hadn't been previously disclosed.

To accommodate declining membership and income, while at the same time increasing its mission and outreach efforts, the church plans to vacate two prominent I.M. Pei-designed buildings on the church's 14-acre Back Bay complex and consolidate its operations in a third, older building.

The church does not plan to sell the buildings, Davis said. The five-member board that controls the church's business may offer the space for lease, Davis said. At today's rates, that could bring in $10 million to $20 million a year.

Davis said the church's finances are challenging, but it is not being forced to sell Eddy's two former homes, a mansion on 8.3 acres in Chestnut Hill in Newton and a modest house in Lynn. Davis said the board decided that the church should expand its teaching efforts worldwide, especially to youth, by downsizing and making more efficient use of its resources, he said.

''This is what the church is about," Davis said yesterday, in an interview on the 13th floor of the church's 26-floor administration building, one of the buildings that will be vacated. ''We are turning this big ship of the church in a direction that is far more beneficial to mankind."

The church's current staff in Boston will vacate the administration building and the so-called Colonnade building, a long, arched structure along the famed reflecting pool near Massachusetts Avenue. Over the next 18 months or so employees -- a majority of whom are also church members -- will move into the Publishing House, a 300,000-square-foot building that was built in 1934 and also houses the library and Christian Science Monitor newspaper.

''The board is not going to lose control of the plaza," Davis said. ''That will assure the City of Boston that it will have good stewardship."

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.