The Media Line: Iran Moves To Seize Tehran’s Oldest Protestant Church  

Iran Moves To Seize Tehran’s Oldest Protestant Church  

By The Media Line Staff  

The Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are moving to seize St. Peter Evangelical Church in Tehran, the country’s oldest Protestant church, while ordering families living on the historic compound to leave as part of what church leaders describe as a broader campaign against Iran’s evangelical community.  

Church leaders said armed intelligence and regime agents threatened them with imprisonment and instructed the 20 low-income Christian families living on the property to vacate immediately.  

They said the property is being confiscated through EIKO, the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, and re-registered through the Islamic Revolutionary Court in a process intended to remove the church’s legal status.  

Founded in 1872 by American Presbyterian missionaries, St. Peter Evangelical Church has served Tehran’s Protestant community for nearly 150 years. Commonly known locally as the Qavam church because of its location on Si-e-Tir Street, formerly Qavam-ol-Saltaneh Street, the church occupies a city-block-sized compound in downtown Tehran.  

In a letter signed by the Executive Secretary of the Synod of the Evangelical Church of Iran in Diaspora, church leaders expressed “severe distress” over the developments and accused Iranian authorities of becoming increasingly emboldened since negotiations toward a potential US-Iran agreement began.  

“The regime is no longer afraid of the international community,” the letter states.  

Church officials said authorities have already seized a 10,000-square-meter garden belonging to the church, which they said is now occupied by four IRGC officials. They said a new property deed has been issued in the IRGC’s name and that church employees and members are now considered trespassers on land that historically belonged to the church.  

Iranian authorities have maintained that the church had improperly rented parts of the property to members.  

Church leaders said the latest action follows the destruction of the Evangelical Church of Mashhad on June 4 and reflects a wider pattern of pressure on Iran’s Protestant community.  

“It is clear that without a swift response to this crisis, we may be deprived of our last remaining church centres in the country,” the synod’s letter said. It called for international action to halt “the ongoing process of expelling Christians from their places of worship and the occupation and destruction of these properties.”  

Human rights advocates and the Anti-Defamation League’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities said they are documenting the property seizures as illegal evictions and serious violations of religious freedom.