Image Credit: Einsatz-Report24.de / Facebook screenshot 
PHILIPPSBURG, Germany (LifeSiteNews) — Arsonists set fires on both the altar and near the entrance front of the historic St. Peter Catholic Church in Huttenheim last month.
On January 28, unidentified individuals set two fires in the 18th-century, Baroque-style church, one on the altar cloth and another on a table in the front of the church with a set of brochures, per German media. A woman inside the church and several passersby quickly spotted the flames and extinguished them before authorities arrived, with the fire ultimately causing no major damage but will still cost an estimated 8,000 Euros to repair.
Police are still searching for the arsonists as of this writing.
Several locals expressed surprise that vandals would set fire to a sacred space like a church.
“You are always shocked when arson takes place in a church,” Philippsburg Mayor Stefan Martus told German newspaper Badische Neueste Nachrichten (BNN).
“It is extremely regrettable that there are people who no longer hold anything sacred. Whether in the church, graves in the cemetery, or other property of strangers,” he added.
“We are disturbed that something like this could happen in the church,” Thomas Barth, a Catholic economist, said. “For us as Catholics, it is shocking that someone could have so little regard and respect for the church.”
Indeed, arson attacks on Catholic and other Christian churches have skyrocketed across Europe in recent years. OIDAC Europe’s (Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe) 2025 report showed that the number of arson attacks on churches and other Christian buildings doubled in 2024 compared with the previous year, with 94 reported cases.
READ: Arson attacks on European churches have doubled in one year: report
Germany had the highest number of documented arson attacks at 33. Numerous German churches continued to be attacked in 2025. In September alone, the Diocese of Passau reported that 15 churches were targeted by theft and vandalism.
“We usually have about 15 to 20 burglaries in a whole year, and now we currently only have 15 cases in the month of September,” Josef Sonnleitner, the diocese’s finance director, said at the time.
Within the last year alone, there have been several incidents of vandalism and desecration at notable European churches. A November incident in Lourdes, France, saw the entrance of the Sacré-Cœur parish, among the city’s principal places of worship outside its renowned Marian sanctuary, vandalized with graffiti containing the sacrilegious expressions “À mort Jésus-Christ” (“Death to Jesus Christ”), and the right-hand side carried the words “Sale race de Jésus-Christ” (“Dirty race of Jesus Christ”).
That same month, in Rome, human feces were found at various parts of San Nicola di Bari Church (St. Nicholas of Bari) in Ostia, including the altar. Within the same week, urine and human excrement were also found in multiple corners of a Catholic chapel, including the altar, at the Termini Railway Station, Rome’s main train station, which frequently draws Catholic pilgrims traveling to the Eternal City.
READ: Catholic church, chapel desecrated within a week in Rome
Last February in the Vatican, a man jumped onto the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica and kicked off the historic candelabra along with the altar cloths. Then in October, another man urinated on the basilica’s high altar during Mass.
For Decades Alex Jones Has Exposed The Satanic Pedophile Cults That Run The World
