{"id":21335,"date":"2026-03-06T21:34:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=21335"},"modified":"2026-03-06T21:34:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:34:05","slug":"more-anti-christian-hate-crimes-across-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=21335","title":{"rendered":"More anti-Christian hate crimes across Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/p>\n

Anti-Christian hate crimes in Europe rose during the month of January, according to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC).<\/p>\n

The group reports 39 recorded anti-Christian hate crimes, in most cases targeting places of worship and symbols, rather than individuals.<\/p>\n

There were 18 incidents of vandalism, 10 arson attacks, five cases of desecration, and four thefts targeting religious symbols.<\/p>\n

Three cases involved violence against Christians, including an assault on a street preacher in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Ten of the incidents took place in Italy, eight in Germany and seven in France. Seven other countries saw at least one incident.<\/p>\n

OIDAC noted that January saw an unusually high number of arson related attacks, most of which were in Germany and Italy.<\/p>\n

Outside of the EU, there were two recorded incidents in the UK and one in Ukraine. One of the incidents in the UK involved the police banning a planned \u201cWalk With Jesus\u201d in Whitechapel due to the risk of serious disorder stemming from a hostile reaction from the largely Muslim populace of the area.<\/p>\n

Recently the European Parliament passed a resolution reaffirming its opposition to all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including anti-Christian persecution, and recognising its failure to appoint a coordinator to deal with Christianophobia when it has a fully functioning anti-Islamophobia coordinator. The resolution was welcomed by OIDAC.<\/p>\n

The group said that \u201cthe [European] Parliament not only acknowledges the global scale of anti-Christian persecution but also highlights an institutional asymmetry within the EU\u2019s existing anti-discrimination architecture\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite describing the 39 recorded incidents as a \u201crise\u201d, it is entirely possible that the real number of anti-Christian hate crimes is much higher as a report published last year suggested that anti-Christian hate crimes are often \u201cdownplayed, under-reported or politically overlooked\u201d.<\/p>\n

Previously published data by OIDAC suggested that in 2024 there were over\u00a02,200 anti-Christian hate crimes in Europe, pointing to a monthly average of over 180.<\/p>\n

OIDAC director Anja Tang-Hoffman said the latest figures “point to the need for sustained monitoring, effective preventive measures, and proportionate law enforcement responses”.<\/p>\n

“Ensuring the protection of places of worship and the free\u00a0and safe exercise of religion remains a core obligation of states under European human\u00a0rights standards and an essential component of social cohesion and pluralism,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock) Anti-Christian hate crimes in Europe rose during the month of January, according to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC). The group reports 39 recorded anti-Christian hate crimes, in most cases targeting places of worship and symbols, rather than individuals. There were 18 incidents of vandalism, 10 arson attacks,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[574,2564,577,575],"class_list":["post-21335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-antichristian","tag-crimes","tag-europe","tag-hate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}