Churches in Europe are increasingly being attacked by migrants who refuse to accept that there is a religion other than their own, and that they live in a country where theirs is not the indigenous faith.

A migrant from Sweden has filmed himself smashing the windows of a Catholic church in Haninge, a suburb near Stockholm, while shouting obscene comments, including threats.

„Sweden, now I’m going to rape Jesus in there! Allahu akhbar!

the migrant shouted wildly as he rampaged through the streets. The Swedish news portal Samnytt also published a video of the shocking incident.

Suède : un migrant cible une église catholique avec des pierres au cri d’”Allah Akbar, je vais violer Jésus” et diffuse les images sur tiktok https://t.co/9eMGhhj6GV pic.twitter.com/8ldgrM1rsT

— Fdesouche.com est une revue de presse (@F_Desouche) August 22, 2023

According to the latest available data from 2017, Haninge had a population of around 31,000, of which more than 35 per cent were of foreign origin. Churches have long been the target of attacks in Sweden, especially in areas with large immigrant populations. In 2021, for example, the historic 12th-century Spanga Evangelical Lutheran Church near Rinkeby, on the outskirts of Stockholm, was attacked with several incendiary bombs.

Some churches have been converted into clothes shops, nightclubs and hotels. In Mechelen, Belgium, the Church of the Sacred Heart has been closed for two years as it is converted into a café and concert venue, which investors believe will become „a new cultural hotspot in the heart of Mechelen”.

The highest number of churches have been converted in Belgium. According to a 2018 study by Pew Research, while 83 per cent of Belgians say they were raised Christian, only 55 per cent still follow the religion and only 10 per cent say they attend church regularly.

The trend is not limited to Belgium, as churches in Italy and Germany have also been converted for similar purposes. It is, however, most pronounced in the Dutch-speaking northern region of Flanders, where individual towns used to have as many as six churches on average.