Joy and pain: updates from Iran

Believers in Iran continue to feel the sharp end of persecution, especially those at the mercy of hostile authorities. But mixed in with the grief and hardship are significant answers to prayers – your prayers.

Written by Bahar*, an Iranian Christian living outside the country

October has given Iran’s Christians reasons to praise God, and plenty of reasons to keep praying. Behind every headline is a country under heavy strain. According to the Economist, the US blockade has badly weakened Iran’s economy, pushing ordinary families deeper into poverty, with rising food prices, unemployment and living costs. For Christian converts, that comes on top of surveillance, discrimination and the risk of arrest.

Praise God

Hannah Gholami has been pardoned. The 36-year-old convert was jailed for taking part in a house church. Arrested three Christmases ago, she had served around half her two-year sentence when she was told on 2 October that she had been pardoned as part of a general amnesty. It is an answer to prayer, and a reason to thank God.

Mahshar Parandin, a Christian convert in prison whose charges remain unknown, has finally received medical leave. The artist and mother, in her 50s and her family’s main breadwinner, has serious health problems affecting her balance, mobility and speech. Her prison doctor reportedly said she needed heart tests and surgery for two growing tumours, one putting the sight in her eye at risk. She has now been granted ten days’ leave. We thank God, but ten days is not a cure, and many other prisoners are still waiting for treatment.

Joy that does not last long

Even as Hannah’s release was celebrated, other news arrived.

Lida Alexani has been summoned to begin a 13-year sentence. The 58-year-old grandmother had already spent a month in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. ‘Deviant proselytising contrary to the holy religion of Islam’, and ‘gathering and collusion’ are her charges. Her husband, Pastor Joseph Shahbazian, has been in Evin Prison since February 2025, serving 16 years for leading a house church. Pray for their family, who face separation once again.

Ghazal Marzban is among more than 20 women in Evin’s women’s ward denied visitors as punishment for protesting against conditions. Serving nearly ten years, she has now gone another seven weeks without a visit, after four months of being refused them earlier this year. She has also been refused a Bible, apparently because only Christians born into Christian families are allowed one.

Elnaz Ghorbani and her husband, Sohrab Ghavidel, have fled Iran and do not plan to return. Elnaz was summoned to begin a five-year sentence, having left after a raid on her mother’s home in October 2024. Sohrab stayed to care for his sick father, was arrested and endured nine days of psychological torture before being bailed and escaping. They are safe, but they have lost their home, their families and their country, and Sohrab’s case is still unresolved.

What prison looks like

Behind these names is a system designed to wear people down, both mentally and physically. Prisoners can be held in cells where the light never goes off, while religious recitations play over loudspeakers they cannot turn off. Guards wake them by hammering on iron doors. Detainees waiting for interrogation can hear others being beaten in nearby rooms. In solitary confinement, the silence becomes just as heavy, and some prisoners have spoken aloud simply to hear a voice.

Treatment is delayed or refused, visits and phone calls are cut off as punishment, and books, belongings and Bibles are withheld. Even after release, some survivors say that ordinary sounds, like a doorbell or a car engine, can still bring the fear back.

Why is this happening?

In Iran, a Christian’s faith is treated as a threat to national security. Armenian and Assyrian Christians are tolerated to a degree, so long as they do not share their faith with others. Persian-language church services have been shut down since 2009, which pushes converts into creating underground house churches. Those gatherings are then raided, and believers are charged with ‘propaganda’ or promoting ‘deviant’ beliefs.

The arrests do more than punish individuals. They spread fear, scatter house churches and cut believers off from one another. When a pastor is jailed, his wife summoned, a friend sent into exile and a prisoner denied visits, the message to everyone watching is that gathering, speaking and following Jesus will cost you. The aim is to isolate Christians and stop their activities.

Iran’s believers face all this while also dealing with a collapsing economy and the strain of conflict. Fear of arrest sits alongside the fear of not being able to feed their families.

Still trusting, still obeying

Yet the church in Iran has not stopped following Jesus. Foad*, a Christian convert living in Iran, faces the same financial pressure as his neighbours, and the same risks that come with being a believer. When he prayed, “Lord, here I am, send me to do Your work,” he did not even have enough money for his travel expenses. “Yet the Lord miraculously provided everything I needed,” he says.

That obedience shaped an encounter at his workplace only weeks ago. A mother and her son came in, and Foad learnt she was suffering from cancer. Feeling the Holy Spirit prompt him, he told her, “The true God has healed you.” She asked at once, “Are you a Christian?” When he said yes, he prayed for her. Both she and her son wanted to know more about Jesus, so Foad gave them reliable Christian resources and took their contact details to follow up.

He did it knowing the risk. “Even in these difficult and uncertain times, when we put our trust in God, the blessings we experience are even greater than those we receive on ordinary, mundane days,” he says.

The headlines tell of arrests and prison cells. They also tell of believers who know the cost and follow Him anyway.

*Name changed for security reasons