The Iranians stormed this church and forced its closure. But I’ll never forget the Christians I met there

The cross glistened in the rays of the afternoon sun. I could see it in the distance as I made my way up Qods Street. The area was home to the University of Tehran, and college students were out and about. I took a right on Taleghani Street and slowed down as the arched windows came into view. Nearing the premises, I saw a sign on the entrance: “This church is closed due to major repairs. Please do not return.” 

I closed my eyes, trying to take it all in. How could this Assemblies of God (AOG) church in the heart of the capital, once so lively and thriving, be abandoned? Its stillness contrasted with the bustle and banter from the university students a couple of streets away. Looking in their direction, I realised they were close to the age I was when I first set foot in Iran 20 years ago. 

A place of refuge

I was born in America to an Iranian Muslim family but was baptised at a Lutheran church as a child. Fortunately, my family did not mind my conversion. I had travelled back to Iran in 2005 after being accepted onto an English translation programme at a high-ranking university. I had gone as far as visiting the campus and finding accommodation. Everything was good to go, but it didn’t work out. Instead, I decided to pursue something closer to my heart and investigated the possibility of publishing Beyond the Darkness (Simon & Schuster, 1995), the true story of Angie Fenimore, which I had translated into Farsi. Angie was a victim of child abuse. She had attempted suicide in the hope of escaping her suffering but, in a near-death experience, descended into a realm of darkness and terror, only to encounter Christ. Suicide was on the rise among Iranian women, and I believed this story about overcoming trauma and embracing life would resonate with them. 

I was told I may find help with my book project at the AOG church in Tehran. Established in the mid-20th century, it was one of a handful of churches built before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, after which the Iranian government prohibited the construction of new churches. There, I met Pastor Henri, who was intrigued by the topic of my book and arranged for me to visit his wife, Marina. 

At their home, Marina, who is half Armenian and half Assyrian, treated me to Turkish coffee and nazook, an Armenian pastry with nuts and a cream filling. In her living room, which looks out over the garden, my eyes were drawn to a large, gold frame on the wall containing a collage of portraits. Sensing my curiosity, Marina explained that they were all church leaders in Iran who had lost their lives for their faith. One, wearing a white Roman collar and with an intense look in his eyes, stood out. Bishop Haik Hovsepian, head of the Iranian Assemblies of God, had staunchly advocated for religious freedom. His campaign in the early 1990s to release Mehdi Dibaj, a fellow pastor who spent ten years in prison and was sentenced to death for apostasy, received global attention. “Haik would preach the message that, in the church, when one member is in pain, all are in pain,” Marina said. “He took it upon himself to see that his colleague received justice.” But there was a price to pay. Days after Dibaj’s release, Haik disappeared and was later found dead. He had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest. 

Christianity in Iran is far from a modern implantation by missionaries from the West. It predates Islam

Marina described how others in the collage had met similar fates: Tateos Michaelian, a beloved pastor and Bible translator, was shot in cold blood in Tehran only months after Haik’s death. Dibaj was abducted and found dead in the forests of Karaj five months after his release. Bagher Yousefian, known as “the soul giver”, was hung by the neck in the woods of Gorgan two years later. And in 2005, Ghorban Tourani had his throat slit on his own doorstep. His family found his bloodied, lifeless body on their way home shortly after. 

Their murderers were never identified or brought to trial.

After our meeting, I remained in touch with Marina. She led women’s Bible studies in her home, and dozens of young women looked up to her as a mentor and confidante. At the time, I was living in the northern province of Mazandaran, 180 kilometres away from Tehran. Visiting Marina entailed boarding a bus at 5am to journey through the winding, mountainous road to the capital. Yet I made the trek whenever I could. 

Ancient history

Christianity in Iran is far from a modern implantation by missionaries from the West. It predates Islam, too. Although Christians were always a minority under the various state religions, they were active in their faith, directly influencing the figureheads of the Islamic Golden Age in Iran and, at one point, even sending evangelists to lands as far away as China. 

Unlike the traditional Armenian or Assyrian churches in Tehran that held services in their respective languages, The AOG church held services in Farsi and catered mainly to Iranians from Muslim backgrounds. Since the 1979 revolution, theocratic repression had resulted in widespread disillusionment with state religion. Iran portrays itself as a Shia nation, but according to recent research from the Group for Analysing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), only 32 per cent explicitly identify as such. Furthermore, while Iran’s census claims that 99.5 per cent of the population is Muslim, according to GAMAAN, 30 per cent of the population has no religion or self describes as atheist.

The Christian mission agency Elam has stated: “Iranians have become the most open people to the gospel”, while Operation World reports that the number of Christians has grown from 500 in 1979 to more than 1 million today. Women in particular have sought self-worth in the Christian faith, liberated from the strict religious protocols of Islam. For them, it is a pathway to freedom from the honour-based culture in which they have been raised. 

Yet ministering to new believers is costly. When Bishop Haik led the AOG church in the early 1990s, he refused to comply with the government’s demands to ban converts from Islam from attending. Pastor Henri and the other leaders kept the church open to all, even though some served time in prison for doing so. Undercover agents periodically monitored church services. Pastors’ phones were tapped, meaning I had to keep phone conversations with Marina to a minimum. Publicising one’s faith or church affiliation came with the risk of losing a job or being expelled from school. 

With 60 per cent of Iran’s population under 30 years of age, young people comprised much of the congregation. Thus, ministers were regularly approached for career guidance, marital counselling and with mental health concerns. I remember one afternoon when a young woman flew into the church, trembling and in tears, after a run-in with the so-called morality police. It was during a period of heightened crackdowns upon women for their dress code. Klar, another pastor’s wife, rushed to her side and tended to her until she calmed down. 

Like the leaders, every church attendee also risked interrogation or detainment (I was interrogated once by the intelligence services, and my residence was monitored for several weeks). Still, people flocked to the church, many travelling from far and wide to attend services. Those disowned by their families after converting found a sense of belonging in their newfound community; it became their second home.

In 2006, I finally got my book published. Two years later, I returned to the United States to pursue higher education. I heard reports that pressure upon the AOG church to cease its activities had intensified. In 2013, the church’s associate pastor, Robert Asseriyan, was arrested while leading a prayer meeting and taken to prison. Less than a week later, when congregants arrived for the Sunday service, they found the building locked and the “under repair” warning in place. 

The mounting persecution took a toll on Pastor Henri’s health. Witnessing guards storm his church and confiscate all materials, including his books and sermons, culminated in a heart attack. Along with his family and the other AOG pastors, they were forced to flee abroad. I lost all contact with Marina until 2017, when I found her daughters on Facebook and saw a post about Pastor Henri’s funeral. He died in hospital in Turkey. 

A glimmer of hope

In 2022, after 21-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested for loosely wearing her headscarf and killed in the custody of Iran’s morality police, a new chapter opened in the nation. Her death sparked nationwide protests in which women took to the streets without the mandatory headscarves and voiced their resistance with the rallying call: “Woman, Life, Freedom.” 

The protests were the first in which women were front and centre. “Woman, Life, Freedom” was a rally cry of resistance, not only against the mandatory hijab, but a broader demand for women’s rights in all spheres. 

Last September, to commemorate Amini’s death, Iranian Christian organisations worldwide signed a joint statement honouring the women, men and children of Iran who sacrificed their lives for freedom and human dignity, calling for an end to injustice. Joining with fellow citizens of their country in resistance, they called on the international community to hold the Iranian authorities accountable for their tyranny.

But tyranny persists. Authorities still implement measures to intensify the control and punishment of those daring to challenge unjust laws. Women continue to be hounded and harassed for violating hijab laws or for their activism. Beyond the dress code, they are also subject to inequalities in marriage, divorce, travel, custody and inheritance rights. 

Publicising one’s faith comes with the risk of losing a job or being expelled from school

An Iranian woman who converts to Christianity bears the added burden of persecution. I know of a girl in my hometown who, even after passing rigorous exams, was denied university admission when it was revealed that she was a Christian convert. I was rejected by a family in my hometown as a potential bride for their son once they realised I commuted to Tehran regularly for church. To them, I was an apostate.

Even within the Church – where women turn for liberation from the oppression of Islam – barriers were still imposed. For pastor’s wives such as Marina and Klar, preaching to a congregation or joining their husbands on the podium was out of the question. With all their insight and influence, their outreach was limited to women only. While women often outnumbered men in any given service, sermons were rarely tailored to them. Patriarchal mindsets and mannerisms still ran deep in many male clergy. 

Hope for the future

As I gazed at the “do not return” sign on the abandoned church, my thoughts returned to the young woman who had taken refuge there after her run-in with the morality police. It struck me that the church – with all its complexity and contradictions, beauty and brokenness – had still opened its doors to women like her. In the present void, I wonder where she might turn to, where the safe havens are. Many of the church leaders are either dead, in exile abroad or in prison at home. I find myself asking: What happens now? What destiny awaits if pathways to liberation continue to hit a dead end? In response to the widespread protests after Amini’s death, the authorities have ramped up their crackdowns and refuse to act in the people’s best interests.

Reflecting on the tumultuous climate in Iran and the relentless oppression gripping its Church, it dawns on me that they are inadvertently tied to the women’s movement. The declaration of Martin Luther King Jr in Letter from Birmingham Jail (Penguin, 2018) remains resonant: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” 

I believe there is a spiritual aspect to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. In the months after Amini’s death, many pastors in Farsi-language ministries preached on the importance of Iranian women’s liberation, acknowledging the burdens they have been carrying for generations and stressing the need for healing. This was significant, given the patriarchal attitudes which still dominate in both the nation and the churches.

There’s still a long way to go and much needs to be done to reach a brighter future. It doesn’t help that the regime continues to take measures to quash the movement in the same way it closed the doors of the AOG church in Tehran. As hopeful as I am, I also realise that reaching the level of equality and freedom I long for is a process. It will take some time, but I know the story cannot end here. Just as the life of Jesus did not end with the crucifixion, so hope is slowly emerging from the shadows of strife. Even in persecution’s deep darkness, rays of light emanate from the perseverance of brave women – including Hadis Najafi, Nika Shakarami, Ghazaleh Chalabi and others killed during the recent protests; Nasrin Sotoudeh and Nobel Laureate, Narges Mohammadi, two human rights activists currently imprisoned in Iran, and Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh, who were imprisoned and sentenced to execution for converting to Christianity before seeking sanctuary in the US and writing a book about their experiences. These women illuminate the path towards a brighter future.