Hate crimes against Christians are on the rise in Europe. In a 2024 report, the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe) documented a significant increase in these hate crimes. The hate crimes more than tripled from 2022 to 2023 across 35 different European countries.
Using police data and civil society statistics, OIDAC Europe identified 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes in 2023. In 2022, that number was only 749 incidents. The countries with the most hate crimes included France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, and Austria. The most documented type of hate crime was vandalism, which consisted of 62% of the crimes.
The anti-Christian hate crimes ranged in severity, from vandalism to serious physical violence and aggression. One example was when a jihadist terrorist murdered an altar server and injured several people in two Catholic churches in Spain. Another example was when four Catholic churches were attacked in Paris, France, using arson and Molotov cocktails. In Poland, a man drove his car into a Corpus Christi procession of more than 100 people, injuring several people. Finally, OIDAC Europe noted that Germany alone had at least 2,000 cases of property damage to Christian worship sites in 2023.
These are just a few examples of the hate crimes that OIDAC Europe noted in its report. Per OIDAC Europe’s report, the increase in anti-Christan hate crimes from 2022 to 2023 shows a new rise in hostility towards Christianity across Europe.
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