SECURING SACRED SPACES: EUROPE'S NEW APPROACH TO PROTECTING PLACES OF WORSHIP

Across Europe, places of worship – mosques, churches, synagogues and temples – face growing threats. These sacred spaces are not only centres of faith but also pillars of community life. In recent years, attacks have become more frequent and severe, ranging from vandalism and arson to coordinated online abuse and digital sabotage.

In response, the year 2025 marks a turning point in how Europe protects these spaces. The focus is shifting from reaction to prevention, guided by the principle of Security by Design (SBD). SBD is a preventive methodology that integrates safety features into the architectural, operational, and cultural design of buildings from the very outset. Rather than retrofitting security measures after incidents occur, SBD anticipates vulnerabilities and embeds solutions already at the stage of architectural planning – physical, digital, and procedural – into the very structure of a site.

For places of worship, this means designing entrances and exits to manage crowd flow and emergency response, installing unobtrusive surveillance systems that respect privacy and religious customs, and training staff and volunteers in threat awareness and response protocols. Landscaping and lighting are also used strategically to deter hostile behaviour, while accessibility is maintained without compromising safety.

From Vulnerability to Vigilance: Rethinking Public Space Protection

SBD has evolved from a niche architectural philosophy into a frontline strategy embraced by the European Commission, urban planners, and civil society coalitions. Public spaces such as transport hubs, shopping malls, entertainment venues, and community squares have increasingly become symbolic and strategic targets. This urgency is underscored by recent incidents, including drone sightings that caused considerable disruption at Munich airport in October 2025, which exposed critical gaps in aerial threat mitigation. Hate crimes and politically motivated attacks continue to extend beyond places of worship, affecting schools, cultural centres, and civic gathering points. These events reflect a broader pattern in which attackers exploit the openness, accessibility, and symbolic visibility that define public spaces.

In response, the European Commission has allocated €30 million under the Internal Security Fund (ISF) to strengthen the protection of public spaces. This funding supports 13 cross-border projects involving 163 participants from 22 EU and 2 non-EU countries, marking a significant increase from previous allocations of €22.7 million in 2020 and €17.8 million in 2022. Key focus areas include SBD for religious and cultural sites, counter-drone technologies, firearms trafficking prevention, and protection against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats.

Complementing these efforts, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) have played a pivotal role in global advocacy and capacity-building. Through initiatives like the UN Plan of Action to Safeguard Religious Sites and the #forSafeWorship campaign, they promote multi-stakeholder cooperation between governments, religious leaders, and civil society to protect vulnerable targets. UNOCT’s Global Programme on Countering Terrorist Threats against Vulnerable Targets provides technical guidance and good practices for safeguarding religious sites, while UNAOC fosters interfaith dialogue and community resilience to counter hate speech and radicalization.

What makes the 2025 narrative particularly powerful is the convergence of SBD across multiple domains. For instance for places of worship, the Dublin-based organisation EFI (Enhancing Faith Institutions), specialised in faith-based safeguarding and community engagement, embedded SBD through the SOAR project (“Strengthening the Security and Resilience of At-Risk Religious Sites”) not only into religious architecture planning but also in community trainings. In public squares and transit hubs, other projects like SAFE-CITIES or activities of the “European Forum for Urban Security” (EFUS - a European network of local and regional authorities promoting urban security policies) also apply SBD principles to urban planning and civic infrastructure. At the policy level, the EU Counter-Terrorism Agenda explicitly supports SBD as a preventive tool, enabling scalable and interoperable solutions.

Threat Patterns Across Europe: A Comparative Lens

Recent, non-public data from the EU-funded PARTES project (“Participatory approaches to protecting places of worship”) show how threat patterns differ starkly across Europe, underscoring the need for tailored, data-driven safeguarding strategies. In France, over 1,650 anti-religious incidents were recorded in 2021. Christian sites faced daily attacks – primarily vandalism and theft – while Jewish and Muslim communities endured more direct violence, including arson, physical assaults, and cemetery desecration.

Austria’s threat landscape is shaped by lone actors and youth radicalisation, with nearly 40% of hate crime suspects under 25 years of age, many drawn in through mainstream social media before migrating to extremist platforms. In the Netherlands, attacks are less frequent but often more severe, such as the 2016 firebombing of the Selimiye Mosque by right-wing extremists and a thwarted grenade attack in 2019. Together, these findings reveal an evolution from opportunistic vandalism to ideologically driven violence, fuelled increasingly by digital radicalisation.

The pattern has persisted. Between 2023 and 2025, attacks on places of worship in Europe continued to rise. In October 2023, Molotov cocktails targeted the Kahal Adass Jisroel synagogue in Berlin. In September 2024 a suspected arson severely damaged the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer, France. In April 2025, a fatal stabbing inside a mosque in La Grand Combe, France was described by officials as an Islamophobic hate crime.

Challenges and Opportunities

As SBD gains traction across Europe’s safeguarding landscape, its implementation in places of worship and public spaces reveals both critical challenges and transformative opportunities. These dual realities must be addressed with strategic foresight, inclusive dialogue, and policy innovation.

One of the foremost challenges is the disparity in resources across faith communities. While larger institutions may have access to architectural consultants, security audits, and EU funding streams, smaller mosques, churches, synagogues, and temples often operate with limited budgets and volunteer-led governance. For these communities, navigating procurement processes, applying for grants, or commissioning design upgrades can be daunting. Without intermediary support or simplified toolkits, SBD risks becoming a privilege rather than a standard.

Equally complex is the tension between security and openness. Places of worship are designed to be welcoming sanctuaries, spaces of spiritual refuge, communal gathering, and cultural continuity. Introducing visible security infrastructure, such as bollards, surveillance systems, or controlled access points, can unintentionally signal exclusion or fear. If not implemented with cultural sensitivity and strategic communication, these measures may alienate congregants or reinforce stigmas, particularly among communities already facing discrimination or surveillance.

Stakeholder fragmentation further complicates the landscape. Effective SBD requires coordination between architects, law enforcement, municipal authorities, religious leaders, and civil society actors. Yet misalignment in priorities, language, or timelines can stall progress. In some contexts, historical grievances or mistrust between faith communities and public institutions hinder collaboration, making trust-building an essential precursor to implementation.

The evolving threat landscape also presents a formidable challenge. Attacks are increasingly hybrid, combining physical violence with digital disruption, psychological manipulation, and symbolic targeting. Many existing SBD frameworks, however, remain focused on physical infrastructure and are not yet calibrated to address these complex, cross-domain threats.

Despite these challenges, the opportunities are profound. SBD offers scalable, interoperable solutions that can be adapted across sectors from religious sites to civic squares, transport hubs to cultural centres. SBD also serves as a catalyst for interfaith and cross-sector collaboration. Ultimately, the imperative is clear: to ensure that sacred and civic spaces remain open, safe, and resilient, SBD must be inclusive, adaptable, and embedded from the outset.

Conclusion

Europe is moving from reaction to prevention in how it protects places of worship. In this context, SBD is no longer a technical afterthought but a strategic priority. The growing alignment of architecture, policy, and community engagement around this approach reflects a broader reimagining of how societies safeguard what they value most: spaces of faith, belonging and public life.

This transformation is not merely about infrastructure; it is about trust. When a mosque installs unobtrusive surveillance that respects religious customs, or a synagogue redesigns its entry points to balance openness with safety, it signals more than preparedness. It affirms that security can coexist with dignity, accessibility, and spiritual integrity. Similarly, when youth-led workshops shape crowd management protocols or survivor-informed frameworks guide urban planning, it demonstrates that communities are not passive recipients of protection, they are co-authors of resilience.

The policy landscape is evolving in tandem. With considerable funds allocated under the ISF and growing support from the EU Counter-Terrorism Agenda, SBD is being mainstreamed into cross-border initiatives, municipal planning, and civil society coalitions.

Yet the road ahead demands more than funding and frameworks. It requires a cultural shift in how we design, govern, and inhabit public and sacred spaces. Faith leaders must be empowered not only with resources but with real agency. Architects must learn to integrate security without compromising heritage or openness. Policymakers should prioritise inclusive consultation and draw on the experience of those directly affected by violence.

Building on the evidence gathered in the PARTES project, the PARTESS-COM project continues this work, translating research into practical training, practical tools and partnerships across Europe. The call to action is clear: embed security into the architectural blueprint. This helps to ensure that every place of worship is both a beacon of faith and a bastion of peace.

Kaashif Awan is a Senior Consultant at Enhancing Faith Institutions (EFI), specialising in the protection of places of worship and community engagement. He has extensive experience working with faith communities across Europe, focusing on security training, policy development, and capacity-building initiatives.