The Awakening of the Persian Church Gilbert Hovsepian and Krikor Markarian
Gilbert Hovspeian migrated to the US with his family due to his father’s martyrdom in 1994. Gilbert has traveled to countless countries and to more than 200 churches worldwide, ministering through music, media, worship, and teaching. His international satellite programs have affected thousands of lives, bringing many to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Krikor Markarian served as a missionary for 10 years in Asia with the Frontier Mission Fellowship. He currently serves as a consultant with the Global Council of Mission and as senior editor of the Global Mission Database.
Many Christians have long considered Iran one of the countries most closed to the gospel of Christ in modern times. In reality, however, a steadily reproducing church fellowship movement emerged and spread throughout Iran within our own generation. The story of how this came about is perhaps one of the most intriguing examples of God’s sovereignty at work to accomplish His unchanging purposes among the nations.
In the early 1960s, two decades before Iran closed completely to modern mission work, a team of missionaries from the US began work among the Persian Armenian community in Tehran. Most of the Armenians were the descendants of a forced exile to Iran in 1604. Over the centuries, they developed a unique culture, dialect, and even appearance as they assimilated into their host nation. The missionaries recognized the potential for these Persian Armenians to serve as a “bridge people” between Islam and Christianity, and so began their work among them with this in mind.
We will look at the result of their efforts, but to truly understand God’s hand in this remarkable story, we must first go back over 1,500 years to the birth of the ancient Persian church.
Until the late third century, most believers in the Persian Empire were of Jewish or Assyrian descent. But by around AD 300, a powerful move of the Holy Spirit could be seen among native Persians as well. The church in Armenia was a result of this dynamic spiritual awakening among Persian peoples in the late third century. Gregory the Illuminator, a cross-cultural missionary sent from this ancient Persian church, was instrumental in Armenia becoming one of the first Christian nations. By 301, Armenia became the first of many kingdoms in the East to embrace Christianity on a national level. This history goes to the heart of the Armenian identity, and Armenians can never forget how the intentional efforts of a cross-cultural missionary from Persia shaped their own history.
Unfortunately, the breakthrough among the Persians was short-lived. In 312, the Roman general Constantine was led to believe he should conquer in the name of the cross. His conversion to Christianity and subsequent rise to power as the emperor of a united Rome suddenly brought a political dimension to the new Persian faith. From then on, Christians within the Persian Empire were seen as potential allies to the Roman Empire, and a new wave of government-organized persecution began. By the end of the fourth century, hundreds of thousands were martyred. Finally, with the coming of Islam in the seventh century, the fledgling Persian church gradually declined and then disappeared.
The story of the Armenian church is different from that of the Persian church. While also persecuted and later subjected to harsh Islamic control, the Armenian church remained steadfast as the Persian church eventually disappeared. Interestingly, the only churches in Asia and North Africa that survived Islamic occupation were those that had the Scriptures in their language. The Armenian, Syrian, and Coptic churches are some examples. However, among the Persians, Berbers, and Arabs, no Bible was available in their mother tongue. That mistake was not rectified until modern times, and it is likely no coincidence that with the presence of the Bible in these lands, the church has begun to grow once again.
In Persia that rebirth has been one of the most remarkable the world has seen in many years, and in the providence of God, He allowed the Armenian church a special role to play in this great kingdom advance.
We return now to the Iran of the early 1960s. One of the first five disciples of that American missionary team was an Armenian man named Haik Hovsepian. In the late 1960s, Haik received a call from God to go as a missionary to the northern province of Mazandaran with the specific purpose of starting a work among Muslims. Though officially commissioned by the church in Tehran for this purpose, his burden for Muslims was one that few Persian Armenians shared or understood at that time. Most believed he was wasting his time. However, after about eight years of laboring, five house churches had been established with around twenty Muslim-background believers by 1976. Though only a small beginning, somehow Haik had a sense that God was building a foundation for a much greater work. Having a gift for music, one of the most important investments he made in the future Persian church was his translation and authorship of over 150 worship songs into Farsi. According to those who knew him, he envisioned the day such songs would be sung by millions of believers.
By 1981, the Persian church in Mazandaran had grown to around sixty members, and many leaders were emerging. In that year, Haik answered a request and returned to Tehran to become the leader of the Council of Protestant Ministers (a group that is roughly the equivalent of the National Association of Evangelicals in the United States). His appointment to this post was very timely for the church in Iran. It was just two years after Ayatollah Khomenei (an influential Muslim cleric with a vision for Islamicizing the country) seized the Iranian government, and the emerging church in Iran was beginning to feel the pressure of an increasingly hostile government.
The church in Iran was not the only group to chafe under the new regime, however. The Persian people themselves were beginning to react in a negative way to the harsh restrictions imposed by the implementation of Islamic law. A silent rebellion among young people (70 percent of Iran was under the age of thirty) was beginning to build momentum. If the government opposed something, people in this age group embraced it. When the government burned American flags, they wrapped themselves in them. Most importantly, when the government began confiscating Bibles, they could not wait to get hold of one.
Slowly but surely, a kind of solidarity began to build between the persecuted Armenian believers and the “persecuted” youth of Iran. In defiance of the law, Haik began to encourage the Armenian Evangelical churches to open their doors to Persians and to begin using the Farsi language in their services. As new Persian believers began pouring into the churches, the government issued an ultimatum demanding that all such believers be reported. In response, Haik courageously rallied the churches to send a unified response back to the government: We will never submit to such demands.
By the late 1980s, the number of Persian Muslim-background believers had grown to many thousands. Then in the 1990s, two streams converged to turn this momentum into one of the greatest watershed events in the history of Persian Christianity.
The Christian satellite programs became a lifeline for the church in Iran.
The first was a wave of government-organized crack-downs and assassinations of Christian leaders (including Haik Hovsepian in 1994, whose campaign to stop the execution of a Persian convert received both national and international attention). The result of this was that hundreds of Persian lay leaders rose up to take the place of these martyrs and a nationwide house church movement was born. Indeed, the boldness of Haik and the other martyrs, both Armenian and Persian, had a profound effect on the Evangelical church, but most especially upon the Persian believers themselves. At Haik’s funeral, hundreds of new Persian believers turned out to honor him despite the presence of government agents documenting all who attended.
All of this was God’s foundation building for what would come next. In 2000, Christian satellite broadcasting began beaming the gospel to almost every home in Iran. This was made possible by the fact that millions of satellite dishes had been illegally smuggled into Iran by corrupt members of the same government that had outlawed them. The Christian satellite programs became a lifeline for the church in Iran. Furthermore, when the Iranian people learned that the government was trying to scramble the broadcasts, they became an overnight sensation. Recent nationwide surveys reveal that over 70 percent of the population is watching Christian satellite programs. These same surveys indicate that at least one million have already become believers, and many millions more are on the verge.
This growth has happened so fast that the underground church can hardly keep pace. In one example, a house church that began with two people several years ago has now multiplied into over twenty groups. The leader of this network remarked, “Starting churches in Iran is easy! Everywhere you go to evangelize, people are ready to receive the gospel, or they have already become believers through satellite broadcasts.”
Training leaders is also easy, remarked another leader. The government has left young people with nothing to do, so believers spend time with one another every day. They are constantly gathering for prayer, Bible study, and evangelism. When a group reaches twenty-five people, they divide in half and begin again. Within two years, a new believer is expected to become a leader of a new house fellowship and to disciple new leaders. There are now so many believers in Iran that satellite broadcasters have begun shifting gears towards more discipleship-oriented programming.
As in China, the rapid multiplication of house churches through the “cell-division” strategy has resulted in well-or-ganized networks. There are at least one thousand groups, most of which are the fruit of Haik Makhaz’s intentional discipleship of several dozen core Persian leaders in Tehran during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. One of these leaders, for example, oversees 137 house church fellowships.
These organized networks are thriving despite great pressure from the government. In early 2008, government intelligence agents infiltrated a network of around fifty churches by responding to satellite broadcasts as would-be seekers. From there, they were able to work their way into the entire network. They rounded up the believers associated with these groups and forced them to sign a document that outlined their punishment if they ever assembled again. Because of such heightened security concerns, coordination between the underground church and satellite broadcasting ministries has grown increasingly difficult, though many are seeking creative solutions to bridge this divide.
Leaders of house church networks have repeatedly expressed that one of their greatest needs is for more Bibles in Farsi. The stories of how God has used the Scriptures to bring entire families to Christ continue to pour forth from Iran. There is a tremendous hunger and widespread demand for the Bible. A new translation coordinated by Elam Ministries (founded also by a Persian Armenian) has already had a profound impact. Gilbert Hovsepian is now preparing an audio version for release within the year. It has been said that even if 10 million Bibles were available today in Iran, it would not be enough. One lady who has personally distributed twenty thousand Bibles says that she has never once been turned down; rather, the vast majority received it as the greatest treasure they had ever been given.
The potential for a large-scale people movement to Christ in Iran has not been this great since the fourth century.
For centuries, ethnicity and religious affiliation have been considered to be identical. If someone is an Armenian, it is assumed that person is a Christian. If someone is a Persian, it has been assumed for many centuries that that person is a Muslim. In the last ten years, a new term has become wide-spread throughout Iran, which can be literally translated as “Persian Christian,” or as they would conceptually translate it “Muslim Christian” (farsimasihi). If someone saw you wearing a cross, they might ask, “Are you Armenian?” or “Have you become Armenian?” But today the question has changed. Because new believers are often asked if they are Persian Christians (and not Armenians) it shows that for the first time in many centuries, one can be recognized as a Christian without being seen by the greater Persian community as a traitor against Persian people.
This new identity is highly significant, testifying to the presence of a truly indigenous, self-reproducing movement. It has long been believed that a breakthrough among Persians could have significant impact on surrounding peoples in Central Asia and the Middle East. This has certainly proved to be the case in Iran itself. Persian missionaries are now going out to nearby minority peoples such as the Azeri, Luri, and Kurds, with funding coming directly from the Persian believers themselves.
The potential for a large-scale people movement to Christ in Iran has not been this great since the fourth century. Though all of this is cause for rejoicing, it is important to remember that the Persian church has been here before. As was the case 1,600 years ago, the government has begun to respond forcefully to stem the tide of this widespread movement. Although presently this new movement is entering a new period of trial, this time around they have a strong international network of believers, churches, and ministries standing ready to help them. Now they have the Scriptures in Farsi, contextualized worship songs, leadership training programs, and satellite broadcasts. And last but not least, they have the promise of Jesus, who said, “I will build my church.” Without any doubt, the move of the Holy Spirit in Iran is evidence of that ultimate and enduring reality.