Iran's exiled Christians watch events unfolding across Middle East with hope and fear

OXFORD, England (OSV News) -- As conflict flares across the Middle East following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, the country's exiled Christians remain deeply anxious about the future.

"At one time, Christians were free and every religion respected in our country -- but since the Islamic revolution, everything has been ruined and every sign of civilization demolished," said Bibi Sakine, an Iranian Catholic living in England.

"Yet I totally disagree with what the Americans and Israelis are doing, bombing and killing innocent people. It's up to our country and its people to overthrow their government," she said.

The Catholic spoke as strikes continued against key targets following the Feb. 28 death of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid retaliatory attacks by Tehran against neighboring countries.

In an OSV News interview, Sakine said Iran's younger generation was now rejecting its 47-year Islamist regime and demanding freedom, but warned it was unclear how far other Iranians "still believed in Islam."

Meanwhile, a Protestant pastor from the London-based Iranian Christian Fellowship told OSV News that harsh Islamist rule had spurred a huge increase in secret Christian conversions, but said he feared "terrible reprisals" if the current regime survived.

"All minorities -- Christians, Bahá’ís, Sunni Muslims and others -- have been suppressed and forced into silence: whatever the price, we now just want this to end," said Hossein Amiri, who co-wrote a February report highlighting anti-Christian repression.

Amiri said Iranian Christians in Western countries were having to speak carefully because of activities by Iranian agents and threats to their families at home.

"As Christians, we are part of a bigger picture and want our voice to be included with others," Amiri added. "But people are terrified that, if this regime stays in power, they'll kill everyone who lives and thinks differently."

Estimates vary widely of the number of Christians in Iran, most of whose 93 million inhabitants are Shia Muslims.

They include historic Armenian and Assyrian communities, which are represented in the state assembly but closely monitored and restricted, as well as evangelical house churches, mostly converts from Islam, who face constant police raids and arrests.

The country's roughly 20,000 Catholics, according to the U.S. State Department estimates, mostly belong to the Armenian and Chaldean rites, although around 2,000 are Latin-rite Catholics, led since 2021 by Belgian Franciscan Cardinal Dominique Mathieu of Tehran-Isfahan.

The February report by human rights groups Open Doors, Middle East Concern, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Article 18, said "scapegoating" of Christians had intensified in Iran, with 254 arrests during 2025, twice as many as the previous year.

It said Christians were also receiving harsher court sentences, with dozens now in prison and facing exclusion from education, employment and health care.

A Christian woman, Aida Najaflou, was charged with "gathering and collusion" and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran." Ordinary Christian acts such as praying, performing baptisms, taking Communion and celebrating Christmas were cited as evidence of Christians' alleged crimes, the report said, with community members facing everything from lashes to long prison sentences only for living a regular Christian life.

In a December open letter, Iran's exiled opposition leader, Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed last shah, urged the pope to condemn the "relentless persecution of Christian converts," including "baptized Christians seeking full communion with the Catholic Church."

Meanwhile, the London-based Article 18, which also campaigns for religious freedom in Iran, said at least 19 Christians had been among thousands killed when disorder erupted Dec. 28 nationwide and were met by "unprecedented violence," according to the United Nations.

An Iranian-born Anglican Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani, said her church's Iran diocese had been "hanging by thread" without a bishop since 2016, with its three main churches in Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz now also closed.

She added that Iran's small house churches represented a "significant movement," but were forced to remain "small and tight" for fear of being discovered, leaving many Christians feeling "utterly alone and isolated."

"Iranians are totally disillusioned with the version of Islam they've received over four decades -- many are finding something in Christianity, and it's our responsibility to foster this," the bishop, who was a candidate for Anglican archbishop of Canterbury in 2025, told OSV News.

"But the government has been operating a policy of slow strangulation, preventing baptisms and persecuting Christians into leaving. Even if there was a change of regime, extremists and fanatics will still be there in the shadows."

Bishop Francis-Dehqani said great dangers remained despite the Islamist regime's apparent "decapitation," adding that it was naive to suppose Iranians could now simply "take back their country."

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still the power base, and it's likely to be incredibly brutal if fighting for survival," said the bishop, who left Iran when her brother was killed by regime agents and her Anglican parents survived a murder plot.

"What may happen if the country is left to the mercy of its regime doesn't bear thinking about. I fear President Donald Trump and Israel have unleashed something over which they now have very little control."

In their February report, the human rights groups demanded "unconditional release" of Christians and others detained for their beliefs and the reopening of "forcibly closed" churches.

Amiri, the Protestant pastor, said it was vital Iranian Christians abroad spoke up for believers inside their country, when its church leaders were "unable to raise their voices" for fear of "being closed down."

"Although we're not totally free to say what we want, even outside Iran, we must stand up for the truth, which, as Jesus said, makes us free," Amiri told OSV News.

"Having failed for the past 47 years, people now say they're ready to die to be rid of this regime. But for now, we don't know whether to be happy or sad, to dance or to mourn."

Meanwhile, Catholic Sakine said she hoped Catholics and other Christians would play a part in Iran's future -- once the country's older generation stopped "suppressing the younger," and interfaith relations again reflected "mutual respect for the beliefs of others."