A historic Protestant church in Iran is reportedly at risk of being confiscated by the Iranian government, raising fresh concerns over the regime’s ongoing pressure on religious minorities.
Tehran’s St. Peter Evangelical Church, one of the country’s few remaining historic Protestant churches, has been threatened with seizure by Iranian authorities, according to multiple reports. The government has also reportedly ordered the eviction of 20 families living on the property, while a 10,000-square-meter garden owned by the church has already been taken over by four officials affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, The Jerusalem Post reported.
“I will tell you the literal words they used,” Sasan Tavassoli, a U.S.-based minister with ties to the Presbyterian Church in Iran, said in a statement published this week by The Free Press.
“We were concerned about America all these years. America came. They slapped us on the face,” Tavassoli added. “We slapped them on the face back. And then America withdrew. So we are no longer afraid of America.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities issued a statement Wednesday denouncing the reported threat against the church and criticizing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s treatment of Protestant Christians.
Nadine Maenza, co-chair of the task force and a former chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, urged the international community to respond firmly to Iran’s actions.
“As Iran threatens to confiscate St. Peter's Evangelical Church in Tehran — one of the last remaining historic Protestant churches in the country — and reportedly warns worshippers and church leaders with imprisonment if they refuse to leave, the entire international community must respond with clarity and resolve,” Maenza stated.
“The seizure and demolition of churches are part of a broader pattern of systematic repression against religious minorities, including Christians, Baha'is, Jews and Sunni Muslims,” the former USCIRF chair and commissioner continued.
The latest reports follow another recent case involving an Iranian Protestant church. In early June, the World Communion of Reformed Churches said it had received reports that the Evangelical Church of Iran building in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, had been seized and completely demolished by order of the Iranian regime.
Rev. Johnnie Moore, another member of the ADL’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities, said the regime’s actions show fear rather than strength.
“A regime that must bulldoze churches and seize the sanctuaries of peaceful congregations is not displaying its strength but confessing its fear — fear of a faith it cannot license, a conscience it cannot conscript, and a people it cannot control,” said Rev. Johnnie Moore, another member of the ADL’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities.
“The Protestant Christians who now gather in living rooms and basements under threat of years in prison are among the most courageous people anywhere on earth, their quiet endurance a standing rebuke to every claim the Islamic Republic makes for its own legitimacy,” Moore, a former USCIRF vice chair and commissioner, added.
Iran is ranked as the 10th-worst country in the world for Christian persecution in Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List report. The watchdog group says Christians in Iran face raids on house churches, long-term imprisonment, interrogations and hostility from relatives and local communities.
