But not everyone has been smiling, and the installation has (unsurprisingly) proved divisive. One commenter on the cathedral’s Facebook page denounced it as “trivializing” and “spiritually bankrupt.” Another, in a letter to The Guardian, argued that if Anglicanism wanted to be truly inclusive it would focus less on gimmicks and instead allow Christians in same-sex relationships to celebrate their weddings in its churches.

The number of British people who identify as members of the Church of England has dropped by more than half in recent years, to 14 percent in 2018 from 31 percent in 2002, according to figures from NatCen, a social research institute. Regular Sunday attendance at Anglican churches in Britain fell by 15 percent from 2007 to 2017, according to the most recent statistics from the Church of England.

While Mr. Bryant said attendance numbers were strong at Norwich Cathedral, and the installation there was simply about creating a space for reflection, it is part of a larger trend that has seen cathedrals try nontraditional activities to attract more people.

The Rev. Adrian Dorber, dean of Lichfield Cathedral, told the BBC the initiatives were not “cheap marketing tricks” but rather decisions “made out of serious pastoral concerns.”

“We are faced with a missionary situation of trying to connect people with the transcendent when we know from British social attitudes, people have given up on it,” he said. “I think the raid we can make on people’s consciousness and the way he can help people into some kind of relationship with a sacred building or sacred space is to be applauded and not condemned.”

Lichfield Cathedral, in England’s West Midlands, has a space-themed installation this summer in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, allowing visitors to walk along a reproduction of the surface of the moon.