At the European XFEL, diagnostic imagers are placed at several locations along the photon beam transport path towards the experimental stations to deliver information on beam position, shape, pointing, and other beam properties. These imagers use scintillating screens to visualize the x-ray beam. Under certain conditions the x-ray beam intensity may exceed the damage threshold of the scintillators. X-ray beam damage to materials may be a result of long term degradation or it may be caused by instantaneous destruction. For imagers at the European XFEL mainly the latter damage is observed by single, short, and intense pulses or sequences of such pulses. The damage threshold is related to the absorbed energy density in the scintillating screens in a given time. This threshold can be evaluated when the transverse XFEL beam intensity distribution is known, which varies along the beam path as a result of focusing, photon energy and attenuation.