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22.10.2010

ARMENIAN PROTESTANT COMMUNITY IN IRAN

   

Vahram Hovyan

Vahram Hovyan – expert of the Center of the Armenian Studies in “Noravank” Foundation

Among the Armenian Protestant communities in the Middle East Armenian Protestant community in Iran, which was formed in the middle of the 19th century, takes a special place.

Iran is one of the countries in the Near East which was not a part of the Ottoman Empire. So, formation of the Armenian Protestant communities processed here, unlike other Near Eastern countries (Turkey, Syria, Lebanon), independently from the process of the formation of the Armenian Protestant communities in the Ottoman Empire. If in the Ottoman Empire the authorities were tolerant and even encouraged widening of the Armenian Protestant communities (in order to split Armeniancy), in Iran the authorities struggled against this phenomenon, considering that it granted Western states an opportunity to meddle into the domestic affairs of Iran and to influence the processes inside the country1. Despite resistance of the authorities Protestantism managed to penetrate into Iran and it was also spread among the Armenians.

Today Armenian Protestants, alongside with the Apostolic and Catholic communities, are one of the confessional layers of the Armeniancy in Iran. It is important to study them not only from the point of view of summarizing researches on the Armenian studies, but also in the aspect of fulfilling and consolidation of the potential of the Armeniancy which implies the study of all its segments. The contemporary regional and global processes round Iran which also has a religious component, attach additional topicality to this issue.

The studies of the Armenian Protestant community in Iran are mainly concentrated on the following issues:

  • Number and geographic dispersion of the Armenian Protestants,
  • Organizational structures,
  • Armenian Protestants in the Iranian environment.

Number and dispersion

The number of the Armenian Protestant community in Iran has varied in a course of time which was connected with general increase and reduction of the number of the Armenians in the country. Thus, as a result of the Armenian Genocide, the increase of the number of the Armenians in Iran also caused the increase of the number of the Armenian Protestants. Before the Islamic revolution in 1979 Armenians, under the influence of different factors, started to emigrate from the county, and, in a consequence, their number was cut by half2. The reduction of a general number of the Armenians in Iran had also influenced the number of the Armenian Protestants. Despite a new wave of Protestant missionary work in Iran at the end of the 20th century, the number of the Armenian Protestants has not grown, because missionary work is mainly conducted among Muslim population.

Определение численности армянской протестантской общины Ирана является сегодня одной из самых сложных задач армянского протестантства страны. Дело в том, что статистика в этом вопросе довольно сложна. Христианство в Иране делится на два сегмента:

Setting the number of the Armenian Protestant community in Iran is one the hardest tasks for the local Armenian Protestants today. The point is that the statistics here is rather complicated. Christians in Iran are divided into two segments:

  1. National which includes communities formed on the national principle and which has national characteristics. The Armenian Apostolic Church is among them3.
  2. General, which includes communities standing out with their ethnic diversity or which have not been formed on the national principle yet. Protestant community is such a community4. The internal division here is carried out based on the language criterion. Correspondingly, the Protestant community in Iran mainly consists of Iranian speaking, Armenian speaking and Assyrian speaking people.

Statistics does not distinguish those language groups and considers them as an integral whole – the Protestant community. According to the statistics, the number of the Protestant community in Iran is 8.5 thousand. However the statistics does not show how many of them are Armenians. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that Armenians are the second after the Iranian speaking Protestants by their specific weight because:

  • number of the Armenians in Iran incomparably smaller than the one of the Iranian speaking population, but at the same time they outnumber Assyrian speaking population,
  • missionary work is mainly carried out among the Muslim population of Iran and as a result number of the Iranian speaking Protestants increase.

Geography of the Armenian Protestant community in Iran covers Tehran, New Jugha, Tabriz, Aral, Khamadan5 but its overwhelming majority is centered in Tehran. The following facts speak about that:

  • the overwhelming majority of the Armenians of Iran (about 70%) live in Tehran6,
  • the Armenian Protestant organizational structures are centered in Tehran7.

Organizational structures

The organizational structures of the Protestant community in Iran are not numerous (7), but they are diverse. Besides churches there are also educational, social and other organizations. They all are centered in Tehran.

By their orientation the organizations of the Armenian Protestant community in Iran can be divided into 5 groups: managing (1), churches (3), educational (1), social (1) and information (1).

  1. The managing organization in Iran is the Armenian Evangelical Association, which is a branch of the Armenian Evangelical Association of America. The president of the Association is Rev. Sergei Shahverdyan who is also a Shepherd of the Armenian Evangelical churches of St. Hovhannes and Ogheshunch8.
  2. The oldest church is the Armenian Evangelical church of St. Hovhannes, which was established in 1876. There are also Armenian Evangelical churches of Oghenush and Shnorhali9. The fact that two of three Armenian Evangelical churches as well as the Evangelical Association are headed by one and the same person (Rev. Sergei Shahverdyan) allows assuming that the Armenian Evangelical community in Iran has clergy deficiency.
  3. The only educational institution is “Gohar Mesropian” Armenian Evangelical School.
  4. The only social structure is the Christian camp “Evangelical garden”.
  5. The only information agency is “Surhandak” quarterly magazine.

The comparative analysis shows that the Armenian Protestant community in Iran has commonalities and differences with the Armenian Protestant communities of other countries of the Near East in the aspect of the organizational structures. The commonality is the variety of the organizational structures. the Armenian Protestant community in Iran, like Armenian Protestant communities in Lebanon and Syria, besides churches also has social, educational and other organizations.

The differences can be seen in two parameters: the number of those organizational structures and their geographic dispersion:

  • As for the number of the Armenian Protestant organizations of Iran they are far beyond the Armenian Protestant organizations of Lebanon and Syria. Besides the churches which are also fewer than the ones in Lebanon and Syria, there is only one of each structure in the Armenian Protestant community in Iran.
  • From the point of view of dispersion as compared with the Armenian Protestant structures of Lebanon and Syria which have wider geographic dispersion, the Armenian Protestant organizations of Iran are mainly centered in Tehran.

Armenian Protestant community in the Iranian environment

This issue can be considered from narrower and wider points of view:

  • in narrower aspect the position of the Armenian Protestant community within the framework of the Armeniancy of Iran is discussed,
  • in a wider aspect the relationships with the Iranian state and society are considered.
  1. Position of the Armenian Protestant community within the framework of the Armeniancy of Iran. Inside the Armenian community the Armenian Protestant community in Iran is mainly in good relations with the local Apostolic and Catholic communities. There are no cases of confrontation fixed. In the communal life the relations are grounded on the bases of partnership. It is obvious especially in the educational sphere on the example of the Armenian Evangelical School “Gohar Mesropyan”. The school is under the charge of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Here both the children of the Protestants and adherents of the Armenian Apostolic Church are educated10.
  2. Relationships with the Iranian state and society. Quite the other situation is in the relations of the Armenian Protestant community with the Iranian state and society and those relationships cannot be appraised unambiguously – on the one hand constitution and laws of Iran guarantee definite rights and freedoms for religious minorities but, on the other hand, there is an obvious negative attitude of the Iranian state and society to the Protestants and, particularly, to their missionary work. Protestants in Iran, unlike other Christian communities, are perceived as an alien element and a means in the hands of the external (Western, Jewish) powers.

Protestant missionary work which began in Iran back in 1830 has been gaining in scope in recent decades. The process of active conversion of the Muslim population into Christianity (Protestantism) is taking place actively. According to International Antioch Ministries missionary organization over the recent period in a consequence of the growth of a number of those who was converted to the Christianity, today the number of Christians in that country is from 500 thousand to 1 million people. The purpose of the organization is to bring the number of Christians in Iran to 10%11. In this case, by broad-brush estimates, the Christian population of Iran will be about 7 million people.

Viogour missionary activity in Iran in its turn causes counteractions on behalf of the state and Muslim fanatics. In this Islamic country “the perception of the missionaries as the implementers of western influence puts them into the position of public enemies”12. Missionary work is prohibited on a state level, and for conversion they can be sentenced to death. As for the counteractions by the Muslim fanatics they are manifested mainly in the assaults on the Protestants and violence.

The Armenian Protestants are also directly involved into a missionary work because training and “using” local missionaries is a serious godsend for the external missionary organizations. Back in 1950s Armenian Set Eghnazar spread an active missionary work; he arranged everyday prayers and taught Bible at his apartment in Tehran which was very important for disseminating Christianity in Iran13.

It is not a mere chance that the Armenian Protestants in Iran often become a target of counteractions. Those counteractions in their regard became noticeable in 1990s and were manifested in the assaults on the Armenia Protestant activists. In 1994 two Armenians – the Protestant activists – became the victims of such assaults14.

Today the situation for the Armenian Protestants is comparably better than the one in 1990s, but the problem is not fully annihilated yet, because the negative attitude of the Iranian state and religious fanatics to the Protestants and their missionaries has not changed. Here the problem is not restricted only to the issue of the security of the Armenian Protestants. Negative attitude of the Iranian society to the Protestants may transform in the negative attitude to the Armenians in general and jeopardize Armenian-Iranian relations as well. Thus, prudence and wariness are needed in order not to set Iranian society against Armenian Protestants.

1See Տիգրան Ղանալանյան, Հայ բողոքականներ, «21-րդ ԴԱՐ», 2010թ., թիվ 4, էջ 39-40։

2A Look At Iran's Christian Minority http://www.payvand.com/news/04/dec/1207.html

3See Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iran : Christians, 2008 http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/49749d0b2d.html

4Ibid.

5Մանուկ Մանուկյան, Իրանահայ գաղթօջախի առօրյան, Երևան, 2000, էջ 40։

6Давид Петросян, Армянская община в Иране http://patmaban.com/index.php?name=news&op=view&id=70

7See AMAA Directory 2010: Armenian Evangelical Churches, Institutions, Organizations, Pastors and Christian Workers Worldwide, p. 12 http://www.amaa.org/Directory%20for%20website.pdf

8Ibid

9Ibid

10Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Iran: Rights of Armenian churches, their locations and language(s) of instruction, 1 December 1998, IRN30743.E http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6ad264.html

11В Иране начинается христианское пробуждение? http://news.invictory.org/issue13676.html

12Сергей Кривошеев, Экзогенная "евангелизация" Ирана: Persian Ministry (Служение Персии) ведет религиозную войну на территории Ирана http://www.noravank.am/rus/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=1980

13See Teymour Shaheeni, The Church in Iran: Her Past, Her Present, Her Future http://www.elam.com/articles/Church-in-Iran/

14Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iran: Christians, 2008 http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/49749d0b2d.html

«Globus National Security», issue 5

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