A theft yesterday at a Russian Orthodox church in Tehran has shed light again on the types of churches permitted to operate in Iran today, and those that are not.

The Church of St Nicholas is the only Russian Orthodox church still functioning in Iran today, when once there were around 50.

The other churches still permitted to hold services are Assyrian, Armenian, or Roman Catholic, with Persian-language services outlawed to prevent attendance by the growing number of Christian converts.

One church that used to offer such services, the Evangelical Church of Mashhad, was demolished last week after being forcibly closed for decades.

Meanwhile, the only three remaining Anglican churches in Iran – St Luke’s in Isfahan, St Paul’s in Tehran, and St Simon the Zealot’s in Shiraz – have not been permitted to reopen since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Article18 estimates that there are around 800,000 Christians in Iran today, the vast majority of them Christian converts, who have no place to worship and therefore meet together in private homes in what have become known as “house-churches”.

However, these gatherings have been described as “enemy groups of a Zionist cult” by the Iranian authorities, and members routinely face arrest and imprisonment on charges of “membership of illegal groups” or “propaganda against the state”.

The Russian embassy decried the theft in a statement, but insisted that “Christianity is respected in Iran”, and called for the return of the stolen items.

“We never believed that there would be people in Iran who would treat Christian sacred things in this way and insult the faith in the one God that this church has been the guardian and protector of for decades,” the embassy said.