Christians in Europe are seeing their “religious expression suppressed” through an expanding web of legal action and growing public intolerance.
That is according to a new report by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) released on November 17.
OIDAC’s annual review states that an increasing number of Christians now find themselves in court simply for expressing religious views.
This stands in contrast to Article 10 of the European Union’s own Charter of Fundamental Rights, which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the right to manifest those beliefs in practice, teaching and worship.
But, according to OIDAC, that guarantee increasingly exists only on paper. In its report, it says across Europe high-profile cases involving Christian belief are on the rise.
In Britain, Christians have been arrested for praying within 150-metre “buffer zones” now installed around abortion facilities in England, Wales and Scotland.
The OIDAC reports that in Spain, meanwhile, while the country does not have formal buffer zones around abortion clinics, more than 20 people since 2022 have appeared before the courts for praying nearby.
The Netherlands has seen members of the Christian pro-life group Kies Leven detained for peacefully handing out leaflets outside clinics.
Their treatment, OIDAC warns, reveals a creeping readiness by authorities to restrict both religious freedom and basic expression in public spaces.
It highlights concerns about parental rights and education, referring to a Spanish court banning an evangelical Christian father from reading the Bible to his son and the Swiss Federal Court of Lausanne deciding withdrawing public funding for an all-girls Catholic school.
The court argued that the school violated the “requirement for confessional neutrality of public schools”.
In several European countries, parental rights are being curtailed through discriminatory policies and legal decisions. One of the common themes is that secular education,” according to the OIDAC.
It also says intolerance against Christians in Europe is on the rise; the countries most affected are France, the UK, Germany and Spain.
According to the OAIC, a total of 2,211 anti-Christian hate crimes were recorded by governments and civil society organisations across Europe in 2024.
While these figures are down slightly compared to 2023, the report says that personal attacks against Christians have been increasing.
