
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – An annual report by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) shows there were “2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes” across 35 European countries in 2023, Christianity Today (CT) reports.
Published in November, the OIDAC annual report shows that the most affected countries were France (1,000 incidents), the United Kingdom (over 700 incidents), and Germany (277 incidents), CT reports.
“These trends should alert us all to step up efforts to protect freedom of religion or belief, including the freedom to openly and respectfully discuss different philosophical and religious viewpoints on sensitive issues, without fear of reprisal and censorship,” Anja Hoffmann, executive director of OIDAC Europe, said in a press release.
Noting that hostility toward Christians in Europe does not generate the same kind of attention that the persecution of believers in other parts of the world does, Christof Sauer, senior consultant and former founding director for the International Institute for Religious Freedom, told CT: “It is particularly challenging to attract attention for discrimination against Christians in Europe, compared to the discrimination of minority groups such as Jews and Muslims.”
“Secularists might regard Christians in Europe as those in power, as ‘perpetrators’ of violence from a historical perspective, and might have a hard time acknowledging victimhood,” Sauer said. “There is an increasing degree of religious illiteracy in Europe, and understanding of the broad scope of religious freedom often is limited.”
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Romania and neighboring Hungary are facing an energy crisis linked to a record heat wave and the related low level of the Danube River, with Romania forced to shut down its last operating nuclear reactor while Hungary struggles to keep the only one of its four Paks reactors still operating online.
An elderly Christian leader has been detained in India for allegedly offending the religious sentiments of the Asian nation’s Hindu majority on social media.
Members of Pakistan’s Christian minority were reeling Friday after numerous violent incidents over faith and what they say were false allegations of blasphemy against Islam, the majority religion in the Asian nation.
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits remained relatively low in early August, offering another sign that widespread layoffs have yet to take hold even as hiring across the U.S. economy remains subdued.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a second preemptive airstrike in Gaza in two days Thursday, targeting a Hamas terror cell in Khan Yunis that Israeli military officials said was preparing an attack against Israeli forces.
The Trump administration has announced nearly $2 billion in health and humanitarian assistance for faith-based organizations, placing several major Christian ministries at the center of a reshaped U.S. foreign-aid strategy following sweeping cuts to USAID programs.
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has cast doubt on a controversial Russian-led expansion of Hungary’s only nuclear power plant after record-low levels of the Danube River nearly forced its existing reactors into a complete shutdown.






