There are “native” Christians who are discriminated against but have legal status. They prefer to meet in their “clubs”. Then there are foreigners who turn to embassies and consulates for support. Worst off are the “illegals”, Muslims who converted or children of mixed couples: police watch churches to stop them from entering.
Teheran (AsiaNews) – Christmas is drawing near for the very few Christians (officially 340,000) in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As in other countries in the Middle East, ancient Christian communities are discriminated against and migration is a strong temptation for those faced with the twofold impact of growing Islamism and the draw of the globalized world. Persia is the country of origin of the Magi who followed the star up to Bethlehem. Like the Three Kings of tradition, Christians in Iran could be divided into three groups, with three different ways of celebrating the nativity of Christ.
First of all, there are the “natives”, the largest in number, descendents of the ancient Christian communities, Catholic and Orthodox, with Armenian and Assyrian-Chaldean rites. It is not only about ritual: families still speak Armenian and Aramaic – these communities are cultural minorities too. Nearly all are Iranian citizens, discriminated against on legal and social levels but with legal status. They enjoy freedom of worship: Christmas in celebrated in church in Teheran and other cities. They also enjoy the right to freedom of association and gathering: their “clubs” organize Christmas bazaars (during Advent) and community Christmas feasts, concerts, and parties or they meet as families. As is the case with other Iranians, it is not easy for them to party in the streets or in restaurants because some food and drink, certain music, clothes and gestures are banned. To party in peace, the best option is to celebrate within your private circle.
Then there are the “foreigners”: Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants. There are very few non-Iranians who follow the eastern rite and a similarly small number of Iranians follow the Latin one. Mass is celebrated in the Latin rite in four churches in Teheran consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, [Our Lady of] Consolation, Abraham and Joan of Ark. The liturgy is celebrated in Farsi, Italian, English, French and Korean. There are small communities with members permanently residing in Teheran, “expats” who would be diplomats, students and businessmen in Iran for a few months or years, and at times tourists. There are close ties with embassies, including the Apostolic Nunciature, to allow for the legal existence, always precarious, of places of worship and cemeteries. Some embassies are de facto “protective powers”, somewhat like the four consulates (Italy, France, Belgium, Spain) that according to protocol should attend Christmas Mass in Bethlehem.
Then there are “illegal” Christians living in Teheran and elsewhere in Iran. They celebrate Christmas at some personal risk. They are Muslims who converted to Christianity or Christians who “repented” after formally accepting (in the case of mixed marriage) conversion to Islam, or the children of Muslim-Christian couples. Church surveillance by police serves not only to protect public order – or, to be more precise, public order includes a ban on church attendance for those who are not “legally” Christian. Especially fragile is the status of Christians that belong to Protestant communities organized into “local house churches”. Less protected from arbitrary measures and often less cautious than apostolic Churches, these “underground” communities are targeted by the regime: a few days ago, the secret police arrested between 10 and 15 members of such groups in several cities.
In the streets of Teheran, there are no Christmas decorations. “If heaven wills it, we will have a white Christmas and the most beautiful decoration, the dazzling snow in the plane trees under the sun,” a Christian from Teheran said poetically. But just as the pollution caused by man is at its worst in December and January, Christmas will probably be rather grey.
In our times, the Three Kings would have found it much harder to contemplate the starry sky in Teheran. There are several traditions about the Kings, with different cities claiming to be the place of origin of one or other. Their relics are in Cologne in Germany (which is just as well – in the Iran of the mullahs, the tomb of a Zoroastrian or a Christian does not enjoy the same inviolability as that of a Muslim). Something worth recalling is that six centuries after the Magi – before the dawn of Islam – the Sassanidian invaders swept out of Persia. They destroyed everything in the Holy Land except for the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. There, they recognized, depicted in mosaics, the Zoroastrian Magi. The mosaic of Bethlehem is no longer there but the Three Kings may still be admired in Roman catacombs and in the mosaics in Ravenna, dressed in Persian style.
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