Europe is witnessing a stark rise in anti Christian hatred and violence, with thousands of incidents targeting Christians, churches and other expressions of faith, according to a new study.
The latest report from the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, published by the European Centre for Law and Justice, compiles official police records, independent research and data from international bodies.
It records 2,211 anti Christian hate incidents in 2024, including 274 physical assaults. While the overall number of recorded incidents fell slightly compared with the previous year, the report notes that this was largely due to changes in police recording practices, particularly in the United Kingdom and France. By contrast, the number of physical attacks increased.
The report describes this pattern as evidence of Christianophobia, defined as hatred, discrimination or violence directed at people, places or symbols because of their Christian identity.
It states that documented incidents range from vandalism and arson attacks on churches to assaults on clergy and worshippers, as well as legal and social sanctions imposed on Christians for peacefully expressing their beliefs.
Among the countries most affected in 2024 were France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Austria.
Arson attacks on churches rose sharply, with nearly one hundred recorded across Europe, around a third of them in Germany. The report notes that such attacks are often carried out without claims of responsibility and frequently result in little or no judicial follow up.
The data also include lethal and near lethal attacks. The report highlights cases in which priests, monks and worshippers were killed or seriously injured, stressing that these incidents form part of a wider pattern rather than isolated acts.
It adds that Christians and their places of worship are increasingly targeted by individuals inspired by jihadist ideology, alongside militant secularist groups and far left activists hostile to Christianity’s public presence.
Violence, the report argues, is accompanied by growing legal and cultural pressure. It documents multiple cases in which Christians faced prosecution, fines or professional consequences for acts such as silently praying in public, expressing traditional Christian views on marriage and sexuality, or seeking to run faith based institutions in line with Christian teaching.
A significant concern raised by the authors is systematic under reporting. Many Christians, the report states, choose not to report incidents because they fear being dismissed, accused of intolerance, or simply ignored by the authorities.
Surveys cited suggest that a majority of assaults and acts of harassment never reach police statistics, meaning the true scale of anti Christian hostility is likely far greater.
The report also criticises what it describes as an institutional blind spot at European level. While the European Union has appointed coordinators to combat antisemitism and anti Muslim hatred, no equivalent role exists for anti Christian hatred.
As a result, Christians are often only marginally mentioned in broader strategies against racism and discrimination, despite the volume of recorded incidents.
What is at stake in the latest report on anti Christian hatred in Europe is not merely a rise in criminal incidents but whether European societies still understand what Christianity is and why it matters.
Beyond vandalised churches or assaulted clergy, the hostility is directed towards a faith that continues to challenge the moral assumptions of the modern state.
It reveals the cultural conditions under which Christians are now expected to live, tolerated only insofar as their beliefs remain invisible, private and ultimately irrelevant.
Ultimately this is the liberal contradiction at the heart of contemporary Europe, which claims to defend freedom of religion while steadily narrowing the space in which Christianity may be freely lived. This is a long ideological struggle between Christianity and the Enlightenment project itself.
The Observatory’s figures are stark, but the pattern they reveal is more telling. Attacks range from arson and the desecration of churches to legal penalties imposed on Christians for praying silently, expressing orthodox beliefs, or maintaining faith based institutions.
The report identifies perpetrators from radical Islamist backgrounds, militant secularist groups and the far left, but the unifying thread is a shared conviction that Christianity has no legitimate place in public life.
For those steeped in history, the report is not surprising. Since the French Revolution, Christianity, especially any organised and hierarchical Church, has been treated with suspicion by political systems shaped by the Enlightenment.
The new civic religion of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité promised universal emancipation, yet quickly turned against the Church because Christianity insists that truth is received, not invented, and that freedom is ordered towards the good.
The modern state, formed in this spirit, tolerates Christianity only when it is reduced to sentiment. When the Church speaks with moral authority, it is perceived as a rival power.
The report’s findings also expose a European double standard. The continent condemns religious persecution in Asia and Africa and has developed robust institutional mechanisms to combat antisemitism and anti Muslim hatred domestically.
Yet there is no equivalent European coordinator for Christianophobia, despite the scale of documented incidents. Christians are folded into generic frameworks on discrimination, as though hostility towards the continent’s historic faith were an anomaly rather than a defining feature of modern European culture.
Europe is not neutral territory. Its laws, universities, hospitals and concepts of human dignity were shaped by Christianity. To marginalise the faith that formed Europe is not an act of neutrality but of self denial.
A civilisation that treats its spiritual inheritance as an embarrassment should not be surprised when it loses confidence in its own moral foundations.
There is an old saying, the motto of the Carthusian monks, “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis”, or “The Cross is steady while the world turns”.
That stillness is precisely what unsettles modern Europe, built on perpetual change.
Christianity resists the absolutising of any political order. The rise of what the report rightly calls Christianophobia is therefore not a temporary crisis but a revealing sign of a deeper conflict.
The report should be read not only as a warning but as a reflection of modern civilisation.
Europe cannot credibly preach religious freedom across the globe whilst neglecting Christians at home.