Estimates of the number of Christians in the Islamic Republic of Iran vary widely, and that’s understandable. Life is so difficult for non-Muslims in general in the Islamic Republic, and for converts from Islam to Christianity in particular, that many keep their faith a secret and keep up an outward show of being a Muslim. Those Christians who attempt to practice their faith more or less openly do so with the awareness that they could attract the attention of the authorities at any time, and so they have to proceed with extreme caution, a caution that is utterly foreign to Christians in the West — but might not be for much longer.
Orthodox Times on Thursday published an illuminating account of life in the tiny Greek Orthodox community in Tehran, which, we’re informed, “gathers at the only Orthodox church in the entire country, the Church of the Annunciation.”
It doesn’t, however, gather very often. Archimandrite Nikiforos Kounalis of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Crete has gone to Tehran three times to provide the faithful of the Church of the Annunciation with a parish priest, always for a brief period. Otherwise, there is no parish priest at the Church of the Annunciation, and most of the time, the church isn’t even open — because Iran’s Islamic authorities frown on its being open at all.
Fr. Nikiforos recounts: “I always went there during Holy Week, because that was the only time the church was open.” The other 51 weeks of the year, the Church of the Annunciation sits closed in Tehran, a silent witness to how difficult the Islamic Republic makes life for Christians.
Greek Orthodox authorities do all they can for the people of the Church of the Annunication. “Before me,” says Fr. Nikiforos, “Archbishop Makarios of Australia had celebrated the Divine Liturgy there, when he was still an Archimandrite. Also, the late Patriarch Demetrios, predecessor of the current Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, served as priest of the church for ten consecutive years.” That doesn’t mean that Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios lived in Tehran and acted as a priest for ten years; it means that, like Fr. Nikiforos, he would go to Tehran for a week each year, giving the Orthodox Christians there their only opportunity to practice their faith outside of private devotions for the entire year.
Fr. Nikiforos adds that “it all began in 2018, when I was informed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate that I should travel there to celebrate the services of Holy Week. The services began on Holy Thursday and were performed exactly as in Greece, with the assistance of a chanter.”
At first glance, the fact that the divine services were “performed exactly as in Greece” sounds like a praiseworthy commitment to order and exactitude, but there is more to it than that. Fr. Nikiforos notes that “all the services were performed in Greek. It was not possible to use any other language, as this is considered proselytism.”
It is Orthodox tradition to hold divine services in the language of the people, but if the Orthodox Christians dared to pray in Farsi, they would risk arrest. It is against the law in Iran to proselytize for another religion, and even if no Muslim Iranians were present, Farsi prayers would be considered to be an attempt to convert Muslims to Christianity. This, for this brittle and insecure regime, they’re an arrestable offense.
Fr. Nikiforos also said, in the same vein, that “it is worth noting that we are not allowed to perform sacraments such as marriage or baptism.” Of course. Islamic law mandates that non-Muslims under the rule of Islamic law are forbidden to build new houses of worship or repair old ones, so that their communities are perpetually in decline. Why would they allow rites that signify the growth of those communities.
“The last time I visited Tehran,” Fr. Nikiforos said, “was in 2022. No other priest has gone there after me. I experienced unprecedented moments. You cannot imagine how important it is for some Christians in Tehran to wait patiently every two years — even for just a few days — for a priest to arrive there.”
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Some Iranians take an even greater risk: “On Saturday night,” Fr. Nikiforos added, “after the end of the Resurrection service, two people of Iranian origin approached me secretly. They begged me to give them Holy Communion after the rest of the faithful had left the church. They lived in Tehran and, to the outside world, they were considered Muslims!”
Fr. Nikiforos explained: “The fact that they had received Holy Communion must not become known, because in that case their lives would be in danger. Although officially considered Muslims, they had been baptized as Orthodox Christians during a previous visit to an Orthodox country.” Islamic law mandates death for apostasy, so these people were taking their lives in their hands.
What would happen to Tehran’s Greek Orthodox Christians if the Islamic Republic were to fall? It’s anyone’s guess, but it’s hard to imagine their efforts to practice their faith getting any more difficult than they are now.
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