As participants logged into St Jax Church’s weekly Bible study on Feb. 3, the Zoom call filled with the warm echoes of “salam baradar” and “salam khahar”—peace, brother, and peace, sister. The study, held in Farsi, is one of the services the Montreal church has recently added to address the growing influx of Iranian congregants. 

St Jax has baptized over 140 Iranians since 2020, when it opened as a new Anglican church plant.

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“The growth of our Iranian community actually started with a person who was a very dynamic community leader and came here saying, ‘I’m definitely not a Muslim. I’m definitely not a Christian, either. However, I know a lot of Iranians who are trying to explore Christianity, and I’ve looked into where the best churches for them are. It may as well be here,’” recalls senior pastor Rev. Graham Singh. 

While Iran is mostly known as a Muslim nation, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian and Baha’i communities have rich histories in Iran and continue to gather as minorities, often at risk of persecution under the Islamic theocracy that has ruled since the 1979 Revolution. Although apostasy is punishable by death under the Islamic regime, Christian conversion among Iranians born Muslim is a growing movement both within the country and across the diaspora living in the West. Now, as Iran reels from levels of governmental violence that haven’t been seen since the revolution, Montreal’s Iranians are finding comfort at St Jax.

Christian conversion from Islam as a supernatural sensory experience

Reading John 8:7, instructor Pourya Zanganeh asked the attendees if anyone had ever witnessed a stoning. No one raised their hands but him. He added, “I have, when I was three or four years old. It’s one of the sights I will never be able to erase from my brain.” 

“[The Islamic........

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