Churchgoers in Sussex are among the stingiest in England.

Research published by the Church of England's Chichester Diocese shows the average parishioner drops £6.20 per week on to the collection plate.

The regional average for the South is £7.27.

The information is revealed on the diocese's web site and has been picked up by a number of parish magazines.

The web site explains: "In terms of giving as a proportion of local residents' personal income, we are fairly close to the bottom of the diocesan league table.

"It appears that parishioners in Sussex have shorter arms than most of their neighbours."

The research showed that despite Biblical warnings suggesting the rich have as much chance of getting into heaven as they do of leading camels through the eyes of needles, generosity is not dependent on wealth.

Parishioners in Horsham, where the average annual income is £25,719, give £4.61 a week. In Hastings, where the average wage is £21,310, they give £7.32. Cuckfield topped the poll in Sussex, with an average donation of £13 per week.

Those in the London diocese were the highest givers nationally with an average weekly contribution of £12.98.

Heather Standing, church warden at All Souls Church, Hastings, which is struggling for survival because of maintenance costs, said: "I'm astounded but I think it's splendid bearing in mind our area. We have about 20 to 24 people in on a Sunday and we get about £60 a week in donations."

The Reverend Philip Coekin, of Emmanuel Church, Hastings, said: "I work in quite a financially deprived area but they can be very generous people around here.

"Just because someone is hard-up or struggling does not mean they are not extremely generous."

It costs about £25 million a year to run the Diocese of Chichester, which covers East and West Sussex and Brighton and Hove.

It is one of the larger dioceses, with more than 500 churches grouped in almost 400 parishes.