| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 300,000[1]–370,000[clarification needed][1][better source needed] | |
| Languages | |
| Persian,Armenian,Assyrian (Sureth) |
InIran (Persia),Christianity dates back to the early years of the religion. Through this time the Christian faith has always been followed by a minority of the population of Iran under its differentstate religions:Zoroastrianism in ancient Persia, followed bySunni Islam in theMiddle Ages after theArab conquest, thenShia Islam since theSafavid conversion of the 15th century. However, Christians comprised a larger share of the population in the past than they do today. Iranian Christians have played a significant part in the historicalChristian mission: currently, there are at least 600churches and 300,000[1]–370,000converts[clarification needed].[1][better source needed]
A number ofChristian denominations are represented inIran. Many members of the larger and olderchurches belong to minority ethnic groups, with theArmenians andAssyrians having their own distinctive culture and language. The members of the newer and smaller churches are drawn both from the traditionally Christian ethnic minorities andconverts from a non-Christian background.
The main Christian churches in Iran are:
According toOperation World, there are between 7,000 and 15,000 members and adherents of the variousProtestant,Evangelical, and other minority Christian denominations in Iran.[5]
In the 2016 census, the Statistical Center of Iran reported there were 117,700 Christians in the country;[7] other reports put the figure at over half a million people.
The "Country Information and Guidance: Christians and Christian Converts, Iran" report published in December 2014 by theU.K. Home Office states that there were 370,000 Christians in Iran.[1]
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According to theActs of the Apostles there werePersians,Parthians andMedes among the first new Christian converts atPentecost.[8] Since then there has been a continuous presence of Christians inIran.
During theapostolic age Christianity began to establish itself throughout theMediterranean. However, a quite differentSemitic-speaking Christian culture developed on the eastern borders of theRoman Empire and inPersia.Syriac Christianity owed much to preexistentJewish communities and to theAramaic language. This language had been spoken byJesus, and, in various modernEastern Aramaic forms is still spoken by the ethnicAssyrian Christians inIran, northeastSyria, southeastTurkey andIraq today (seeAssyrian Neo-Aramaic, andSenaya language).
From Persian-ruledAssyria (Assuristan),missionary activity spreadEastern-RiteSyriac Christianity throughoutAssyria andMesopotamia, and from there intoPersia,Asia Minor,Syria, theCaucasus andCentral Asia, establishing theSaint Thomas Christians of India and erecting theNestorian Stele and theDaqin Pagoda in China.
Early Christian communities straddling the Roman-Persian border found themselves in the midst of civil strife. In 313, whenConstantine I proclaimed Christianity a tolerated religion in the Roman Empire, theSassanid rulers of Persia adopted a policy of persecution against Christians, including the double-tax ofShapur II in the 340s. The Sassanids feared the Christians as a subversive and possibly disloyal minority. In the early-5th century official persecution increased once more. However, from the reign ofHormizd III (457–459) serious persecutions grew less frequent and the Persian church began to achieve a recognized status. Through theBattle of Avarayr (451) and theresultant treaty of 484, for example, the Persian Empire's numerousArmenian subjects gained the official right to profess Eastern Christianity freely.[9][10] Political pressure within Persia and cultural differences with western Christianity were mostly to blame for theNestorian schism, in the course of which the Roman Empire church hierarchy labelled theChurch of the Eastheretical. Thebishop ofCtesiphon (the capital of theSassanid Empire) acquired the title first ofcatholicos, and thenpatriarch, completely independent of anyRoman/Byzantine hierarchy.
Many old churches remain in Iran from the early days of Christianity. Some historians[which?] regard the AssyrianChurch of Mart Maryam (St. Mary) in northwestern Iran, for example, as the second-oldest church in Christendom after the Church of Bethlehem in the West Bank. A Chinese princess, who contributed to its reconstruction in 642 AD, has her name engraved on a stone on the church wall. The famous Italian travellerMarco Polo also described the church following his visit.
TheArabIslamic conquest of Persia, in the 7th century, originally benefited Christians as they were a protected minority under Islam. However, from about the 10th century religious tension led to persecution once more. The influence of European Christians placed Near Eastern Christians in peril during theCrusades. From the mid-13th century,Mongol rule was a relief to Persian Christians until theIlkhanate adopted Islam at the turn of the 14th century. The Christian population gradually declined to a small minority. Christians disengaged from mainstream society and withdrew into ethnicghettos (mostlyAssyrian andArmenian speaking). Persecution against Christians revived in the 14th century; when the Muslim warlord of Turco-Mongol descentTimur (Tamerlane) conquered Persia,Mesopotamia,Syria, andAsia Minor, he ordered large-scale massacres of Christians in Mesopotamia, Persia, Asia Minor and Syria. Most of the victims were indigenous Assyrians and Armenians, members of the Assyrian Church of the East and of Orthodox Churches.
In 1445 a part of theSureth-speakingChurch of the East entered into communion with theCatholic Church (mostly in theOttoman Empire, but also in Persia). This group had a faltering start but has existed as a separate church sincePope Julius III consecratedYohannan Sulaqa asChaldean Patriarch of Babylon in 1553. MostAssyrian Catholics in Iran today are members of theChaldean Catholic Church. The community that remains independent is theAssyrian Church of the East, but both churches now have much smaller memberships in Iran than theArmenian Apostolic Church.
The number of Christians in Iran was further significantly boosted through various policies of the subsequent kingdoms that ruled from 1501. For example, in 1606 during theOttoman–Safavid War (1603–18), kingAbbas I resettled some 300,000 Armenians deeper within modern-day Iran, as well as establishing their own quarter in the then-capital Isfahan, which is still largely populated by ChristianArmenians some four centuries later: theNew Julfa district. Other hundreds of thousands of ChristianGeorgians andCircassians were furthermore deported and resettled during the same Safavid era and in the laterQajar era within Iran, although both communities are exclusively Muslim nowadays.[11]
In the 18th and 19th centuries,Protestantmissionaries began to evangelize in Persia. They directed their operations towards supporting the extant churches of the country while improving education and health-care. Unlike the older, ethnic churches, these evangelical Protestants began to engage with the ethnic Persian Muslim community. Their printing presses produced much religious material in various languages. Some Persians subsequently converted[12] to Protestantism and their churches still exist within Iran (using thePersian language).
In the early 20th century, once again Iran's stable and extant Christian population was boosted – this time due to the effects of theAssyrian genocide (1914–1924) and theArmenian genocide (1914–1923), as many tens of thousands of refugees poured in. However, both massacres drastically negatively affected Iran's Christian population as well, asOttoman troops crossed the Iranian border in the later stages ofWorld War I and massacred many tens of thousands of Armenians and Assyrians within Iran's borders as well, especially inWest Azerbaijan Province, but also in adjacent provinces.[13][14] Vibrant, huge and millennia-old native Christian communities in these parts of Iran were virtually shattered by the Ottoman actions, being reduced from formerly composing majorities in some of the regions, to very small – though noticeable – surviving communities. Prior to World War I and the Assyrian genocide, the population ofUrmia was 40% to 50% Christian, for example.[15][16]
In 1918, during thePersian Campaign, about half of the Assyrians of Persia died in Turkish and Kurdish massacres and in related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.[17][need quotation to verify]
In 1976, the census reported that the Christian population of Iran holding citizenship there numbered 168,593 people, with most of them beingArmenians. Due to theIran–Iraq War in the 1980s and thedissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, almost half of the Armenians migrated to the newly independentArmenia, but one estimate from 1999 placed the number as high as 310,000.[18] Other estimates since 2000 have placed the number of Christians with Iranian citizenship as high as 109,415 in 2006.
Significant immigration ofAssyrians fromIraq has been recorded during this period, due to massacres and harassment inpost-Saddam Iraq. However, most of thoseAssyrians in Iran do not have Iranian citizenship, and therefore are not included in the data. In 2008, the central office of the International Union of Assyrians was officially transferred to Iran after being hosted in the United States for more than four decades.[19]
| Census | Total | Christians | +/− | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | |||
| 1976[20] | 33,708,744 | 168,593 | 0.500% | ... |
| 1986[20] | 49,445,010 | 97,557 | 0.197% |  −42% |
| 1996[21] | 60,055,488 | 78,745 | 0.131% | −19% |
| 2006[22] | 70,495,782 | 109,415 | 0.155% |  +39% |
| 2011[23] | 75,149,669 | 117,704 | 0.157% | +8% |
On 2 February 2018, fourUnited Nations human rights experts said that members of the Christian minority in Iran, particularly those who have converted to Christianity, are facing severe discrimination and religious persecution in Iran. They expressed their concerns over treatment of three Iranian Christians imprisoned in Iran.[24]
Iranian Christians tend to be urban, with 50% living in Tehran.[25]
Christianity remains the second-largest non-Muslim minority religion in the country.[26]
A June 2020 online survey found a much smaller percentage of Iranians stating they believe in Islam, with half of those surveyed indicating they had lost their religious faith.[27] The poll, conducted by the Netherlands-based GAMAAN (Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran), using online polling to provide greater anonymity for respondents, surveyed 50,000 Iranians and found 1.5% identified as Christians.[27][28]
Beginning in the 1970s, someProtestant pastors started to hold church services in homes in Persian, rather than in one of the ethnic Christian minority languages such as Armenian orSyriac. One of the key leaders who spearheaded this movement was theAssemblies of God bishopHaik Hovsepian Mehr. Worship in homes rather than in church buildings, and the utilization of the national language (Persian), which was spoken by nearly all Iranians, combined with dissatisfaction at violence connected to theIranian Revolution, led to substantial numbers of Iranian Muslims converting from Islam to Christianity. This took place both within Iran and abroad, among theIranian diaspora.[29] It is currently illegal to distribute Christian literature in the official language, Persian.[30]
Muslims whochange their faith to Christianity are subject to societal and official pressure which may lead to thedeath penalty.[31][32][33] Although the Civil Code does not provide explicitly for the death penalty – with the crime being punishable by fines, lashing, and prison terms – judges can impose the death penalty if they desire.[34] Iran was number nine onOpen Doors’ 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.[35]
Pentecostal pastor Hossein Sudmand was charged with apostasy and executed in 1990.[34]Mehdi Dibaj was arrested and imprisoned for more than 10 years before he was sentenced to death in 1993, but after international pressure, he was freed in 1994, although the death sentenced was not lifted. He was murdered the next year.[36][37] In 2011,Youcef Nadarkhani, anJammiat-e Rabbani pastor, was allegedly sentenced to death for refusing to recant his faith.[38] More recently the Iranian-American pastor and former MuslimSaeed Abedini, who in 2013 was sentenced to eight years prison, allegedly "Helped to build the country's underground Christian church network".[39]Satellite TV networks, such as Mohabat TV, Sat7 Pars, andTBN Nejat TV, distribute educational and encouraging programs for Christians, especially targeting Persian speakers. Some Christian ex-Muslims emigrate from Iran for educational, political, security or economic reasons.[40][41][42][43][44]
It is difficult to obtain accurate figures for Protestants of all denominations andCatholics in Iran.[45] Complicating the matter is the mixture of ethnic identity with religious affiliation, and the number of Muslim converts to Christianity, who as discussed above have a strong incentive to conceal themselves.[45][46] Most informants often referred to "only a few thousand" in estimating the overall numbers of non-ethnic Christians in Iran. According to the data from the mid 1990s, all Protestant churches in Iran claimed an ethnic and Iranian membership of 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 or 15,000.[34][45] A 2015 study estimated (describing this as a conservative estimate) that there were 100,000 Christian believers from a Muslim background living in Iran, most of them evangelical or Pentecostal Christians.[47] Significant numbers of Muslim converts to Christianity in Iran are estimated to range from 300,000 to 500,000 by various sources.[48][49][50][51][52] Other estimates put the numbers between 800,000 and 3 million.[53]
According to scholar Ladan Boroumand, "Iran today is witnessing the highest rate of Christianization in the world."[54] According to scholar Shay Khatiri ofJohns Hopkins University, “Islam is the fastest shrinking religion in there [Iran], while Christianity is growing the fastest”,[55] and in 2018 "up to half a million Iranians are Christian converts from Muslim families, and most of these Christians are evangelicals."[56] He adds that "recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between 1 million and 3 million".[57]
In May 2019 Iran's Intelligence MinisterMahmoud Alavi expressed concern over Iranian Muslims converting to Christianity and said the Intelligence Ministry have dispatched agents active in "countering the advocates of Christianity" to areas where there is a potential for people to convert.[58] In June 2024, it was reported that the Iranian judiciary sentenced five Christian converts to a total of over 25 years in prison.[59]
Armenian andAssyrian Christians use Bibles in their own languages.
MultiplePersian translations and versions of the Bible have been translated in more recent times, although distribution of Christian literature in Persian is currently illegal.[60][61][62][63]
Portions of the Bible are translated intoAzeri,[64]Mazanderani,Gilaki,[65] Bakhtiari, Luri,Kurdish (Kurmanji andSorani).
In 2023, the country was given a score of zero out of four for religious freedom.[66]
In the same year, it was ranked as the eighth most difficult place in the world to be a Christian.[67]
So spirited was the Armenian defense, however, that the Persians suffered enormous losses as well. Their victory was pyrrhic and the king, faced with troubles elsewhere, was forced, at least for the time being, to allow the Armenians to worship as they chose.
The Armenian defeat in the Battle of Avarayr in 451 proved a pyrrhic victory for the Persians. Though the Armenians lost their commander, Vartan Mamikonian, and most of their soldiers, Persian losses were proportionately heavy, and Armenia was allowed to remain Christian.
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_of_Persia_(Menologion_of_Basil_II).jpg)
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Religious freedom advocates rallied Wednesday (Sept. 28) around an Iranian pastor who is facing execution because he has refused to recant his Christian faith in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.
In his research article, Miller (2015, p. 71) points to an anonymous, but the well-informed source that estimated that in 2010, there were about 100,000 converts in Iran... estimated the number of Christian ethnic Persians to be about 175,000. these were claimed to be converts of Shiite Muslim background.
The underground nature of the Christian conversion movement has made numbers impossible to determine accurately. Estimates range from 300,000 to 500,000 by various sources.
estimates citing figures lower than 10,000, and others, such as Open Doors USA, citing numbers above 800,000, Many Protestants and converts to Christianity from Islam reportedly practice in secret.
Conservative estimates place the number of Christians in Iran between 500,000 to 800,000 believers, but others claim there are more than one million. Traditionally, Christian families amount to around 250,000, while the remainder consists of converts from Islam. Most converts from Islam belong to the underground Protestant house-church movement, which Iran considers to be illegal. Meanwhile, according to Islamic and Iranian law, conversion from Islam is a capital offense.
Open Doors, interviewed by the UK Home Office on 8 August 2017, stated that many converts do not publicly report their faith due to persecution, so it is difficult to record the exact numbers of Iranian Christian converts. Open Doors believes the number to be 800,000, although this is a conservative estimate. Other estimates put the number between 400,000-500,000 right up to 3 million... A March 2019 US Congressional Research Service report on Iran put the 300,000
Shay Khatiri of Johns Hopkins University wrote last year about Iran that "Islam is the fastest shrinking religion there, while Christianity is growing the fastest."
Speaking of faith and Iran, most people think of Islam. Yet Islam is the fastest shrinking religion there, while Christianity is growing the fastest. According to a report by the Department of State from 2018, up to half a million Iranians are Christian converts from Muslim families, and most of these Christians are evangelicals. Recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between one million and three million. This is up from 100,000 in 1994, and a majority of these converts are reportedly women. A recent documentary, Sheep among Wolves, documents the lives of these converts and shows how Iran is the "fastest-growing church" in the world.
Recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between one million and three million.
| Catholic Church | |
|---|---|
| Oriental Orthodoxy | |
| Church of the East | |
| Protestantism | |
| Missionaries | |
| See also | |
