Iranian authorities have stepped up pressure on one of the country’s few surviving Protestant churches, threatening to confiscate its valuable central Tehran compound and evict residents, in what church leaders describe as the latest assault on Christian worship sites.
The Saint Peter Evangelical Church, widely referred to locally as the Qavam church after its location on Si-e-Tir Street (formerly Qavam-ol-Saltaneh Street), has served Tehran’s small Protestant community for nearly 150 years.
“Six security forces went into the church and sat through a session, saying they wanted to ‘identify’ people,” said Sasan Tavassoli, a US-based minister with the Presbyterian Church in Iran. “They said they’ll return later to evacuate those living on the premises and take over.”
Established in 1876 by American missionaries on land granted by the Qajar monarch Naser al-Din Shah, the church has long been a focal point for Armenians and Assyrians in Iran - whose numbers have dramatically declined under the Islamic Republic.
Tavassoli noted the property’s significant value: “It’s worth tens of millions of dollars,” describing it as spanning “several hectares” of prime real estate in central Tehran.
The Evangelical Church of Iran has issued an urgent appeal to the international community to intervene.
In a letter signed by the Executive Secretary of the Synod of the Evangelical Church of Iran in Diaspora (SECID), church leaders expressed “severe distress” and accused the regime of becoming increasingly emboldened since negotiations towards a potential US-Iran deal began. “The regime is no longer afraid of the international community,” the letter states.
The authorities have already seized a 10,000 sq m garden belonging to the church, now reportedly occupied by four IRGC officials. A new deed has been issued in the IRGC’s name, with church employees and members now deemed trespassers on what was historically their own property.
Tehran claims the church had improperly rented parts of the premises to members.
Church leaders say the move fits a broader pattern of pressure on Iran’s tiny Protestant community. The latest threats follow the destruction of the Evangelical Church of Mashhad on 4 June.
The synod’s letter warns: “It is clear that without a swift response to this crisis, we may be deprived of our last remaining church centres in the country.” It calls for international action to halt “the ongoing process of expelling Christians from their places of worship and the occupation and destruction of these properties.”
Iran’s Christian communities, particularly Protestants who conduct services in Persian, have faced increasing restrictions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
While recognised religious minorities such as Armenian and Assyrian Christians have some protected status, evangelical and Protestant groups have repeatedly reported surveillance, forced closures and property seizures. St Peter’s itself was earlier ordered to stop Persian-language services.
As one of the last functioning Protestant sites in the capital, the fate of the Qavam church has become a symbol of the shrinking space for minority religious practice in the Islamic Republic.
