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Iranian Christians cling to faith and hope as they witness attacks
'My faith motivates me to seek freedom, human rights and justice,' one convert says.
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Fear mixed with hope. That’s how Christians from the Middle Eastern nation of Iran described their feelings after a wave of attacks on their homeland by the United States and Israel.
A diaspora of Iranian believers worships with Churches of Christ across Europe and other parts of the globe. Many stay in touch with family and friends back home. They described massive anti-government protests in recent weeks — followed by brutal retaliation.
In a way, the Saturday attacks are almost an answer to prayer, several Iranians told The Christian Chronicle.
Cleddy Varner, a member of the Hillcrest Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas, leads a class on the Lord’s Supper for the Pohlgasse Church of Christ in Vienna, Austria, in 2018. Among the attendees are newly baptized believers from Iran and Afghanistan.
“I have personally heard from people who were in the streets in the past month when security forces stood in front of them with guns and opened fire,” said Zhale, an Iranian Christian living in Vienna, Austria. As they fled, some of the protestors “looked up at the sky, searching for drones and waiting for help.”
The attacks also threaten lives in Iran, including families of the estranged Christians.
Reggy Hiller, left, gives Arabic New Testaments to refugees from the Middle East in 2016.
“It’s very mixed feelings right now, because of all their loved ones involved, not knowing about the outcome of all this,” said Reggy Hiller, a member of the Pohlgasse Church of Christ in Austria. She echoed sentiments voiced by church members from Venezuela after the Jan. 3 capture of that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
Related: Venezuelans ‘have brought revival’ to U.S. churches
Since 2018, when a surge of refugees from the Middle East arrived on European shores, the Pohlgasse church has baptized more than 100 speakers of the Farsi language from Iran and Afghanistan. Many have children who worship with the congregation and participate in youth camps with other immigrants, including refugee children from Ukraine.
Hiller, the daughter of missionaries Bob and Ruth Hare, recently married an Iranian refugee. Her husband, a musician and instructor, was baptized in 2023. After learning of the Saturday attacks, he went to his knees to plead with the Lord for his family’s safety, Hiller said.
A newly immersed Iranian Christian embraces her husband after their baptisms in 2018. The refugee couple worships with the Danube Church of Christ.
Jake and Amanda Haskew work with another congregation in Vienna, the Danube Church of Christ, that also has welcomed new Christians from Iran in the past eight years. The congregation also is praying for safety and freedom for the Iranian people.
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“Given the last few minutes of news, there is a lot of hope that the future of peace and freedom may be soon,” Jake Haskew said shortly after reports that key figures in Iran’s government, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died in the attacks.
One Iranian’s story
Iran, once known as Persia, appears in the Bible nearly 30 times. Its king, Cyrus the Great, ended Israel’s decades-long captivity by the Babylonians. The Old Testament prophet Daniel served in the royal courts of Babylon and Persia. The book of Esther revolves around Persian king Ahasuerus and his Jewish queen, Hadassah.
More recently, a series of monarchs, or shahs, ruled Iran until 1978. The final shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, implemented rapid modernization, dubbed the “White Revolution,” and fostered strong ties to the U.S. Muslims across Iran expressed discontent with the shah’s pro-Western stance and authoritarian rule, which included severe repression by his secret police.
The shah, who suffered from leukemia, fled to the U.S. for medical treatment, and an Islamic Revolution in Iran brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power. Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days as they demanded that the shah be returned to Iran for trial.
Iranian Christians and visitors visit before Sunday worship with the Danube Church of Christ in 2018.
Zhale was born a year after the revolution. Her father, a member of the shah’s army, rarely left their house. For security reasons, the Chronicle is withholding her full name.
“The Islamic revolutionaries wrote slogans on the walls of our house, made threatening phone calls and warned us that my father would be arrested,” Zhale said, “even referring to stealing or harming the children of the family. … Our neighbors were radical Muslims who considered us taghuti.” The Arabic, Islamic term refers to anything worshiped, obeyed or followed in rebellion against Allah.
Zhale’s school taught strict adherence to Islam, “and any question or doubt about Islamic teachings was met with disciplinary action or humiliation,” she said. “Over time, Islam became for me more a source of psychological pressure, guilt, and suppression of individuality than a source of peace.”
In Athens, Greece, believers sing during a Sunday night worship service with the Glyfada Church of Christ before three Iranians are baptized in 2018.
In 2020, Zhale moved to Italy to study human rights. Eventually, she traveled to France, Austria and Slovakia and became closely acquainted with Christians there.
Last year, while visiting a park in Vienna with her son, she met an Iranian Christian. “As time passed and we became more familiar, I noticed her very kind personality, her energy, and her positive spirit.” Zhale recalled. “She always had a smile on her face, and being around her gave me a feeling of peace and happiness.” Eventually, their conversations turned to faith, and the Iranian Christian talked with Zhale about the concept of grace.
“I came to Christianity not out of hatred, but out of hope.”
“Encountering the idea that God loves and saves a human being without coercion, without fear, and without the mediation of force created a deep transformation in me,” said Zhale, who was baptized on April 30, 2025. “I came to Christianity not out of hatred, but out of hope.”
Nonetheless, she knew that putting on Christ meant she could not live under Iran’s current government. After her baptism, she applied for political asylum in Austria.
“What is slowly healing inside me in this safe country could easily be destroyed again in Iran,” she said. “Being here is not simply a choice for me — it is a matter of survival.”
As she watches the news and waits for messages from home, “I pray for safety, peace and the wellbeing of Iranian people,” Zhale said. “My faith motivates me to seek freedom, human rights and justice. I have seen how faith and freedom are intertwined. I pray for a safe, just and democratic Iran where all citizens can practice their beliefs freely.”
