Tehran authorities confiscating country’s oldest Protestant church

Iran has begun confiscating St. Peter’s Protestant Church in Tehran. Photo: The Media Line

Iranian authorities and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have begun confiscating St. Peter’s Protestant Church in Tehran. Officials ordered 20 Christian families to immediately leave the grounds of the historic complex under threat of arrest, The Media Line reports.

Armed intelligence agents are threatening community leaders with imprisonment if they refuse to comply. The confiscation is being carried out through an enforcement body and the Revolutionary Court in order to fully annul the religious organization’s legal status.

Security forces have already seized the church’s 10,000-square-meter garden and transferred ownership to the IRGC. Iranian authorities now consider all staff and parishioners of the community to be “trespassers” on their own land.

The leadership of the Evangelical Church of Iran in the diaspora said the regime no longer fears a response from the international community. According to human rights defenders, the authorities’ actions amount to an unlawful eviction and a grave violation of religious freedom. Community leaders stressed that Iranian authorities have grown bolder amid international negotiations.

St. Peter’s Church was founded by American missionaries in 1872. It served Christians for nearly 150 years and occupies an entire block in the center of the capital. Believers fear that without a swift international response, they will lose the last remaining spiritual centers in the country.

As the UOJ reported, Rwanda’s president supported the closure of 10,000 Evangelical churches.

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