Sydney  - Borrowing to bet on the stock market has cost Australia's largest Anglican diocese 100 million Australian dollars (80 million US dollars).

"We've done very well over many many years through putting our money in investments, but that also means that there are times when you can seriously lose," Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen said Wednesday.

But for the recent upturn on global markets, the hit could have been 260 million Australian dollars, prompting Jensen to go cap in hand to parishioners.

"In the extraordinary conditions at the end of 2008, as the whole market fell, this strategy also accentuated our losses," Jensen said of the borrowing to fund stock market plays.

The losses, which cuts this year's budget to 5.6 million Australian dollars and means fewer trainee priests and a squeeze on evangelizing, were criticized by Sydney parish priest the Reverend John Cornish.

"Nobody's taking responsibility for this," Cornish told The Sydney Morning Herald. "In other organizations, heads would roll." (dpa)