(LifeSiteNews) — Anti-Christian violent attacks and arsons against churches have increased in Europe, according to a report issued Monday from the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe).
Drawing on data from government reports, civil society, media and their own independent verification, OIDAC Europe found that despite a slight overall decline in the number of anti-Christian hate crimes, trends revealed sharp increases in violent personal attacks and arson, suggesting an escalation in hostility toward Christians.
In the calendar year 2024, OIDAC documented 2,211 anti-Christian hate crimes, a decrease from 2,444 in 2023 that the report attributes to a change in methodology for recording such incidents in the UK, and a temporary lull in France that appeared to surge again in early 2025.
Of these incidents, 274 were classified as personal attacks, an increase from 232 in 2023 despite official data on such assaults being unavailable from the UK and France.
Additionally, arson attacks against churches and other Christian properties logged 94, nearly twice the previous year’s figure. Of these, one-third (33) occurred in Germany, where the bishops’ conference recently warned that “all taboos have been broken” regarding attacks upon churches.
READ: Dramatic rise in attacks on Christian churches in US, Israel: reports
Particular severe incidents include a 76-year-old friar being murdered by a 46-year-old man who scaled the fence of his monastery and assaulted him along with six others who survived, shouting “I am Jesus Christ!”
Another incident involved two gunmen entering the Church of Santa Maria in Istanbul in January 2024 and killing one man who was in the process of converting to Christianity.
A third incident highlighted by OIDAC Europe involved the almost complete destruction by arson of the historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer, France on September 3, 2024.
The watchdog organization also independently documented 516 anti-Christian hate crimes in 2024, and this figure rises to 1,503 incidents when break-ins and thefts from religious properties are included.
OIDAC was able to the establish the perpetrators’ motives or affiliations of in only 93 cases and logged the most common proceeding from a radical Islamist ideology (35), radical left-wing ideology (19), radical right-wing ideology (7), and other political motives (11). The additionally documented 15 incidents which featured satanic symbols or references
Certain silent thoughts ‘illegal in the United Kingdom’
In addition to hate crimes, the report documents growing legal and social restrictions on Christian life and expression, often framed as protecting secularism or equality despite their violation of international rights laws.
For example, several Christians were prosecuted for silently praying near abortion centers. In one case, UK army veteran Adam Smith-Connor was convicted and fined over $11,000 for slightly bowing his head in silent prayer as he stood within 100 meters of the facility.
“Today, the court has decided that certain thoughts – silent thoughts – can be illegal in the United Kingdom,” Smith-Connor said after the ruling at the time. “That cannot be right. All I did was pray to God, in the privacy of my own mind and yet I stand convicted as a criminal?”
Last month Finland’s Supreme Court heard the case of Päivi Räsänen, a member of parliament who has been prosecuted for tweeting a Bible verse criticizing her church’s promotion of LGBT pride events.
The report also highlights the case of a Swiss court withholding public funding from a Catholic girls’ school since the school’s mission discriminates against the admission of boys.
OIDAC Europe also noted two cases in Spain, including a court ruling against a male-only religious brotherhood for discriminating against women, and another where the court prohibited a father from sharing his religious beliefs with his son, including taking him to church and reading the Bible with him. Instead, they granted the secular mother exclusive authority over the child’s religious formation.
By way of recommendation, the watchdog organization calls upon the European Union to appoint a dedicated coordinator to combat rising anti-Christian hated in a way parallel to similar offices that focus on antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Highlighting the overall goal of such anti-Christian aggressions, Marc Eynaud, the French author of Who wants to harm Catholics? Fires, desecration: facts we don’t want to see, told Le Figaro in 2023: “Between the looting, the desecration, the fires, the physical attacks against priests or even the faithful, the media attacks also which contribute to legitimizing in some way the concrete violent acts … all this contributes to the same more or less conscious objective: to eradicate Christianity.”
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