by Steve Dew-Jones | 11 Jun 2026 | Analysis
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...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 14 Mar 2025 | Analysis
Having a place of worship has been described as an “integral” part of religious freedom at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The comment was made by the World Evangelical Alliance’s (WEA) Janet Epp Buckingham in her introductory address to the 5 March side event,...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 7 May 2024 | Explainers
“Christians have 380 churches,” Iranian-Armenian MP Ara Shaverdian told the UN Human Rights Committee in October 2023. What the MP did not explain, however, is that not everybody is permitted to attend these churches, nor are they permitted to preach in the national...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 12 Jun 2023 | Features
When he was arrested, Vahid Hakani told his interrogator he hadn’t known until that day “that gathering and worshipping and praying in the name of Christ is not legal in Iran”. His interrogator wanted him to confess that he was part of a “deviant Christian sect”, and...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 9 Feb 2023 | News
Saheb Fadaie, with his wife Marjan and daughter Marta. An Iranian convert jailed for “acting against national security by organising house-churches and promoting ‘Zionist’ Christianity” has been “pardoned” after nearly five years in Tehran’s Evin Prison. Zaman Fadaie,...
