In its annual report published this week, based on data collected from European police forces, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and various civil society groups, OIDAC Europe reported that there were 33 arson attacks against German churches in 2024.
This represented a record high for the country and stood as the most of any country in Europe last year, Die Welt reported.
In August, the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) warned that attacks on churches have been escalating and that “all taboos have now been broken.”
A DBK spokesman said at the time: “For several years now, we have been dealing with an escalating problem: excrement in holy water fonts and confessionals, decapitated statues of Christ and saints, cigarette butts and other litter in front of devotional images, damaged prayer and hymn books, overturned pews, smashed windows, altarpieces and entire altars destroyed by arson.”
In addition to arson attacks, the OIDAC report found that police recorded anti-Christian hate crimes in Germany rose by 22 per cent last year to 337. This followed a 105 per cent increase in 2023, which saw 277 such attacks.
Meanwhile, France experienced the most anti-Christian hate crimes of any European country, according to the report, which identified 770 police recorded incidents and a further 139 reported by civil society groups. While this represented a “modest decrease” over the previous year, OIDAC Europe noted that this trend appears to have been short-lived, with 2025 already outpacing last year by 13 per cent.
France, the report said, experienced a “disproportionately high number of incidents with an Islamist background,” including the desecration of a cemetery in southern France, which saw over 50 graves and the church vandalised with slogans such as “Submit to Islam.”
In total, Europe saw 2,211 anti-Christian offences last year, again a slight decrease over 2023 when 2,444 offences were recorded. However, the group noted that this was more attributable to poor reporting on such crimes in some European nations and the fact that many police forces only record anti-Christian hate crimes with a political motive, while overlooking anti-Christian attacks with other motives.
OIDAC director Anja Tang said per Die Welt: “Behind this number are concrete cases of church vandalism, arson, and physical violence that have real consequences for the lives of local communities.”
Tang also noted that there are indications of many more cases that go unreported, saying that a survey of around 1,000 priests in Poland said they had faced anti-Christian aggression over the past year, but less than 20 per cent reported such incidents to the police.
“When half the priests in a predominantly Catholic country experience abuse, hostile attitudes towards Christians can no longer be dismissed as a fringe issue,” Tang warned.
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