Iran

How are Christians harassed, discriminated against and persecuted?

When the Shah fell in 1979, an estimated 500 Muslims had converted to the Christian faith. Following the Islamic Revolution, Muslims who convert to Christianity and share their faith with others have faced harsh persecution, including arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. Since 2017, leaders of the underground church have faced sentences of up to 15 years in prison. Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, eight priests have been martyred, the last one in 2004.

Muslims who have converted to the Christian faith, are forced to meet secretly in private homes, while ethnic Christian groups such as Armenians, Chaldeans and Assyrians are allowed to have church buildings and are represented in parliament. However, ethnic Christians are finding that freedom of belief in Iran has a limit if they proactively share their faith with the Muslim majority. For example, the authorities closed an Armenian church in Tehran when it conducted services in Farsi.

Many Muslims become Christians - despite persecution

Despite the persecution, there is a revival in Iran. Church growth has even become a phenomenon that is the subject of research.

In 2020, the secular Dutch polling institute Gamaan conducted a quantitative survey of Iranians' attitudes towards religion. This poll indicates that 1.5 percent of the population identifies as Christian, amounting to 1.2 million who are mainly Christian converts. This figure is much higher than the latest official figure of 117,500 people, which only includes Christian ethnic minorities such as Assyrians and Armenians.

Despite harsh persecution of Christians and other minorities, there has been strong church growth since the Islamic revolution in 1979, when only an estimated 500 Muslims had converted to the Christian faith.

One explanation for the rapid growth can be found in the nature of clerical rule - Iran is the only country in the world ruled by clerics on the basis of Shia Islam, so the clergy must answer for how it is practiced. And when the people, who enjoyed great personal freedom under the relatively secular rule of the Shah, are now experiencing economic decline and being subject to strict Islamic rules, it creates resistance, not only against the Ayatollahs, but also Islam itself. This frustration is causing many Iranians to protest and seek alternatives, not only in the Christian faith, but also in neo-religion and atheism.

See timeline of the evolution of the persecution here...

Read facts about the church in Iran here...

What does the Danish European Mission do

• Some Christians are sentenced to long prison terms in Iran. In 2025, donors have helped 50 Iranian prisoners of conscience and their families cover expenses such as food, clothing, medical care, rent, water, electricity and heating. In addition, the defendants have received legal advice.
• Through the Danish European Mission, Danes have ensured that 233,221 copies of the New Testament have been printed, smuggled and distributed in Iran and imported into neighboring countries where Iranians live between 2011 and 2025.