One in ten members of the Church of England clergy has been the victim of violent behaviour in the last two years, a government-funded survey has found.

The same proportion say they are experiencing more anti-Christian hate crime than they did two years ago.

The survey also found that more than two-thirds have been on the receiving end of verbal abuse and one in five has experienced threatening behaviour over the last two years.

The findings, released on Friday, also showed that clergy who have suffered violence are more likely to find their work “more challenging” than they did previously.

The research was carried out by academics at Royal Holloway, University of London, with £5,000 from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, amid fears that increasing secularisation, the declining status of clergy and abuse scandals may be impacting on the way clergy are treated.

Of the respondents who have experienced threatening behaviour in the last two years, more than one-third have been threatened more than once.

In the vast majority of cases, the threat was to harm the cleric personally, but 20 per cent had a relative threatened and 35 per cent had experienced threats to church property.