Somehow, through dynasties, democracies, shahs, mullahs, revolutions and a war with the U.S., St. Peter's Evangelical Church in downtown Tehran has continued to keep its doors open.
Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs says that all came crashing down on July 12.
“This is a church that has been operating for 154 years until three Sundays ago. So, through the Iranian revolution, through everything, they have kept on having services,” Nettleton says.
Modern-day Iran is referred to as "Persia" in the Old Testament. It was preceded by Babylon and the Babylonian Empire.
Christianity spread to Persia soon after the Church began in Jerusalem, since the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites are mentioned in Acts 2:9.
The people in the Tehran church, Nettleton says, are ethnically Armenian and Assyrian, traditional Christian communities in Iran. The church was even able to have services in the forbidden Farsi language.
“If you're Armenian, they just kind of assumed you're a Christian. So, this was an Armenian church. They got to speak Farsi in their services, which is illegal. You can't have a service in Farsi, except this church was allowed to,” Nettleton states.
It appears, he says, that since the church was started back in 1872 by American missionaries, the mullahs chose a Sunday close to the Fourth of July to close it down.
“They have come in. They've confiscated the property. They have said this property was America's property because it was American missionaries 150 years ago that planted the church,” Nettleton says.
The situation in Iran is chaotic, he states.
“We know who the supreme leader is. We don't know how much contact he has with the rest of the government, and we don't know the state of his health. He hasn't appeared publicly since the start of the war,” Nettleton states.
As he says, this could be a new effort to persecute Christians in Iran.
“If this is chapter one in a new book of persecution for our Iranian brothers and sisters …” Nettleton says.
VOM’s Global Prayer Guide lists Iran as a restricted nation, meaning the country has government sanctioned circumstance or anti-Christian laws that “lead to Christians being harassed, imprisoned, killed or deprived of possessions or liberties because of their witness.”
