Tehran’s Holy Virgin Mary metro station supposedly celebrates the “peaceful coexistence” of religions in Iran. But on International Religious Freedom Day, Steve Dew-Jones reminds us that Christian converts still face extreme persecution
Did you hear the news? Iran has recently made the surprise move of naming a Tehran metro station after the Virgin Mary. The newly upgraded station, now called Maryam-e Moqaddas - Persian for Holy Virgin Mary - features Christian-themed art and is located near Saint Sarkis Armenian Cathedral, the main hub for the city’s Armenian Christian community.
It’s just the sort of news one might hope to hear on International Religious Freedom Day. Except that, as is often the case in Iran, it isn’t quite as positive as it sounds.
The Iranian authorities and the state media tell us that it the renaming is symbolic of the “peaceful coexistence” of religions in Iran. But such coexistence is only available to those born within ethnic minority families considered Christian in origin, such as Armenians and Assyrians - and provided that they are willing to accept certain conditions. This includes, for example, not talking about their faith with “Muslim-born” Iranians, nor permitting Persian speakers to attend their services.
To attend a house church as someone born into a Muslim family is an affront to the Republic
Not so many years ago, some Armenian and Assyrian churches offered services in the national language of Persian, including one very large church in Tehran, the Central Assemblies of God Church. But these have been systematically shuttered over the past 15 years in an attempt to halt the startling increase in conversions to Christianity.
The Iranian authorities will tell you that there are approximately 100,000 Christians in Iran, but their calculations do not include converts, who are believed to far outnumber their Assyrian and Armenian co-religionists, with some even suggesting they may now number close to 1 million.
Silent crackdown
All of which leads us back to the Holy Mary metro station, and the curious contradiction at the heart of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s relationship with its Christian minority - a contradiction which on the one hand enables them to hold them up as a symbol of inter-religious harmony, while with the other hand silently cracking down on any who dare to challenge the status quo.
There are currently at least two Armenians among the Christian prisoners of conscience in Iran. Hakop Gochumyan is from Yerevan and was arrested while holidaying in Tehran. Joseph Shahbazian is an Iranian-Armenian pastor who was re-arrested in February, after previously spending over a year in prison on charges related to his leadership of a house church.
Meanwhile, just three days after the unveiling of the new metro station, a 61-year-old Christian convert, Mina Khajavi, was released at the conclusion of her own two-year term in prison, again related to leadership of a house church.
House churches have been springing up all over Iran in the past 15 years in direct response to the closure of Persian-speaking churches. For the vast majority of Christians in Iran today, the choice is simple: worship in secret at home (either alone or with others), or don’t worship at all.
But for those who decide they wish to continue to worship, there is the ever-present risk of arrest and imprisonment on charges of participating in an “illegal” and “anti-state” gathering. In the eyes of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to attend a house church as someone born into a Muslim family is an affront to the very essence of the republic - and therefore an action against the state’s security.
False freedoms
But at the same time, Iran remains a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrines the freedom to adopt a religion of one’s choosing. On paper, all Iranians are free to leave the faith in which they are considered to have been born. But in practice, such a choice remains open only to those who wish to convert to the religion of the state: namely, Shia Islam.
For those outside this grouping, a conversion brings not only the challenge of potential arrest, but also a life-long wrestling with one’s identity. As the Iranian-born Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli Francis-Dehqani, stated recently during a Radio 4 broadcast, any religious conversion brings “enormous and costly upheaval” which may “take a lifetime to make sense of”.
House churches have been springing up all over Iran in the past 15 years in direct response to the closure of Persian-speaking churches
Four years ago, Article18 launched a campaign to raise awareness about the lack of religious freedom for Persian-speaking Christians in Iran. It was inspired by an open letter written by three Christian converts and prisoners of conscience, who had asked where they could worship once released from prison and not face re-arrest.
One of them, Babak, recorded a video in which he stated: “After these five years, when I am released, will you put me back in prison again because I continue to believe in Christ? Will I be separated from my family again? Will I still be threatened with exile?
“The churches in our city have been closed down, the doors are shut, so we can’t worship in a church building. The churches that remain open are accessible for only certain people…and not to us [converts].”
Babak has now been released but others, like Joseph Shahbazian, can testify that the question remains an extremely valid one, in spite of the recent unveiling of a seemingly Christian metro station in Tehran.
