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Freedom of Belief
7 min read

How an oppressed people are finding a home in Britain

While repression continues in their homeland, Iranian converts to Christianity are building communities in the UK. Robert Wright meets with them.

Robert is a journalist at the Financial Times.

 

Community members celebrate at lunch in a church hall
Community members celebrate at lunch.
Jonathan Samadi.

On the first Saturday each month, in the basement of St Luke’s, an Anglican church in Earl’s Court, west London, a group of around 20 people gathers to go through the familiar rituals of the church’s Eucharist – or holy communion – worship service. Led by a priest, the group sing praise songs before preparing for communion. The pattern has been honed by millennia of Christian tradition. 

Yet, while the service’s structure and rhythms would be familiar to any regular Church of England worshipper, the liturgy is entirely in Farsi, the language of most of the 88mn people of Iran. The organisers of such a service would risk imprisonment if they mounted such a service in Iran for people who, like most of those at the Earl’s Court service, were born in that country as Muslims and converted to Christianity. 

The group is one of a growing number in Iran as well as the UK and other countries catering to Iranian Christian converts. While the exact number who have changed religion is unclear, an estimate used by the British government says there are at least hundreds of thousands in Iran and possibly more than 1mn. The number compares with an estimate of just 500 Christians in the country in 1979, when a revolution led by Shia Muslim clerics installed a government determined to rule the country according to a highly conservative interpretation of Islam. 

The rapid growth is partly a reflection of the growing, widespread discontent within Iran with the clerical regime’s hard-line rule and its strict interpretation of Islam, according to Margaret Walsh, a Roman Catholic nun based in Birmingham. Walsh, who for many years worked with Iranian converts and other people seeking asylum, founded St Chad’s Sanctuary, a church group that works with people in Birmingham seeking asylum. 

Iranians’ unhappiness has been highlighted by the outbreak of widespread, large anti-government protests following the death in September last year of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman arrested by morality police for breaching religious rules by covering her head inadequately.

'She subsequently sought asylum after Iranian security forces raided her parents’ home seeking information about her.'

Walsh says Christianity provided some of those she met with “an alternative to the regime”. 

“This was a way that they could protest by embracing Christianity and rejecting Islam,” she says. 

In the UK, however, converts have faced scepticism, especially after Emad Al Swealmeen, an Iraqi man who converted to Anglicanism in 2015, died in a botched, Islamist-style bombing attempt outside Liverpool women’s hospital in November 2021. The incident prompted a Home Office official to tell the Times that many would-be refugees from Muslim countries sought to “game” the asylum system by converting to Christianity. 

Jonathan Samadi, an Iranian-born Church of England priest who is leader of the Persian Anglican Community in the Church of England’s London diocese, acknowledges some converts are insincere. Samadi, who oversees the Earl’s Court congregation as well as serving as a vicar in Staines, in Surrey, says some people disappear from church once they have been granted refugee status. 

Nevertheless, while he hesitates to give precise numbers, he insists that there is also a significant, large-scale spiritual movement under way. 

“I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of migrants converting to Christianity over the years and remain faithful disciples and Christians,” Samadi says. 

The converts and those who work with them, meanwhile, tend to stress the vividness of the spiritual experiences that prompted them to become Christians. Many testify that helped them to withstand sometimes harsh treatment at the hands of the Iranian authorities. 

One member of the Earl’s Court congregation, who gives her name only as Marta, describes how she faced academic sanctions after becoming a Christian while studying medicine in Isfahan, one of Iran’s centres of clerical conservatism. She left to study in the UK after her parents grew worried about her safety. She subsequently sought asylum after Iranian security forces raided her parents’ home, in the city of Shiraz, seeking information about her. 

Other converts tell stories of fleeing police raids on house churches or even periods of imprisonment for converting to Christianity or proselytising – both regarded as serious crimes under Iran’s Islamic legal code for people born Muslim. 

Marta insists the difficulties only deepened her commitment. 

“I relied more on Jesus,” she says. 

At the heart of many of the converts’ accounts is a sense of disenchantment with Islam as practiced in Iran. They say they have found far greater satisfaction in Christianity. 

Samadi, the priest, recalls how a conversation with a Christian friend while he was studying in Armenia prompted him to start reading the New Testament. 

“After Chapter Six of the Gospel of Matthew – the sermon on the mount – I could really see how much God is on my side,” Samadi says. “The whole sermon on the mount, the values of God and his kingdom, were very refreshing for me.” 

'She fainted after realising it looked exactly like the building in her dream.'

Marta, meanwhile, says that, after an ethnic Armenian friend suggested she try going to church, she had a dream in which Jesus spoke to her directly. When she followed His direction and went to her friend’s Armenian Orthodox Church, she says she fainted after realising it looked exactly like the building in her dream. Churches serving traditionally Christian communities, such as Armenians, are allowed to operate in Iran, while the authorities treat harshly anyone proselytising Muslims. 

“When I woke up and opened up my eyes, I saw lots and lots of Armenian ladies around me and they tried to pray for me,” Marta says. 

Marta says she subsequently started reading the Gospel of John and was immediately struck by the first verse – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. 

“It was very, very amazing and I felt really, really moved by that verse,” Marta says. 

'They were also disturbed by the harsh punishments, including executions, meted out to dissenters.'

A similar disillusionment with Iran’s state religion motivates many asylum-seekers who convert after leaving Iran for non-religious reasons, according to people who work with the group. Brother Benedict, a monk in the Anglican Society of St Francis, who accommodated some Muslim convert asylum-seekers when he lived in north-east Leeds, says that many were disillusioned by how women were treated in Iran. They were also disturbed by the harsh punishments, including executions, meted out to dissenters. 

“This made them question their faith,” Benedict recalls. “Many of them were Muslim in name only. Many of them were recommended by a friend when they came to the UK, ‘You go to a church’.” 

Benedict stresses that he sought to avoid rushing into steps like baptism, trying to ensure that converts were sincere and understood the step’s significance before they underwent it. Others working with converts say they take a similarly cautious approach.  

Margaret Walsh introduced a ceremony of Christian initiation for converts, allowing them to make a public sign of commitment before they were ready for the more rigorous process of undergoing baptism. 

Benedict would nevertheless sometimes go to asylum tribunals and other court hearings with converts to testify to their being regular church attenders. 

“The important thing for us was that they had a relationship with Jesus Christ,” Benedict says. “That was the fundamental thing. Although I was going to the court with many of them, that wasn’t really the purpose of the church. The purpose was to give them a good foundation in the Christian faith.” 

Yet, however robust their new faith, there remain considerable challenges for Iranian converts who have fled to the UK. Marta, who left Iran in 2008, has only just received her full qualification to serve as a doctor in the UK. Marta, who is 40, has resumed her medical career, working as a general practitioner in Oxfordshire. Her younger brother, Simon, 37, who converted separately and fled to the UK after a short period of imprisonment, is still learning English in the hope of resuming his medical career. 

Samadi has a vision that Farsi-speaking believers will support each other as the community puts down deeper roots. 

“I’d like to see a network operating and connecting them together,” Samadi says. 

Brother Benedict says help from local, English-speaking congregations will be critical to supporting Iranian converts as the asylum process moves them to different parts of the UK. 

“I’d like to say many more need support from English congregations but I think it needs a bit more encouragement,” he says. 

'Life in the UK remains a second-best compared with an eventual return to Iran.' 

Yet, for Samadi, life in the UK remains a second-best compared with an eventual return to Iran. Like many other converts, Samadi hopes that the current pro-democracy protests could eventually bring about the transformation in the country necessary to allow that. 

“For those Christians I’ve served in the UK, I think their intention and their dream is to see people in Iran can worship God in freedom, without fear of persecution and being interrogated or deprived of their freedom and rights,” Samadi says. 

The “dream”, Samadi goes on, is to be able to return to Iran to worship in freedom with the Christians who remain in the country. 

“For all those Christians, the whole intention is one day they can share the gospel freely and worship freely with all those who are Christians,” he says. 

Explainer
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9 min read

The facts and our feelings both puncture the small boats-fuelled immigration argument

From stats to sociology, how to be better informed on the issue

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London. 

A people sumggler steers an overcrowded small boat.
A people smuggler steers a small boat, 2021.
x.com/ukhomeoffice.

Late in the evening of May 20, over 80 refugees clambered aboard the small boat that was to bring them to England. They had not gone far when French rescue services were summoned with the boat still located off the Pas de Calais. An eight-year-old boy and a 40-year-old woman were pronounced dead by the medical team and taken to Calais. Both were believed to be Turkish nationals, with their deaths presumed to have been caused by a combination of crushing and suffocation. The small boat continued its journey without them, though 10 others were also evacuated. 

This story is deeply shocking.  

What is also profoundly disturbing is that, while we may not be aware of the details of this particular case, the story is still familiar to us. According to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory there were 73 deaths crossing the Channel in 2024. 

It was almost 30 years ago, in the wake of the UK’s 1996 Immigration & Nationality act that I first became aware of the issues surrounding refugees and asylum seekers. Our church in Croydon was only a short walk from the Home Office’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate based at Lunar House, and it seemed to make sense to begin a drop-in centre. The Croydon Refugee Day Centre has continued its work ever since. 

From the beginning it was hard to miss the fact that asylum was a hot-button issue. The reactions it triggered were intense. I also quickly discovered that nothing was straight-forward. Weaponised politics, the labyrinthine complexity and glacial slowness of our state bureaucracy along with the internecine nature of the charitable sector made collaborating with others frustrating and problematic to say the least. 

Over the years I’ve learned two important lessons with regard to immigration and asylum. First, what grabs the headlines is not necessarily the most important issue. Indeed, it can deflect attention, action and resources from what is of primary significance. Then, second, complex issues are rarely solved by simple, straight-forward, 'silver bullet’ solutions. As the American satirist H. L. Mencken observed: 

“Every complex problem has a solution which is simple, direct, plausible—and wrong.” 

So, with the issue unlikely to go away in the foreseeable future, these are some of the things I believe we need to understand and have an eye to. 

Immigration: don’t get confused 

When the Office for National Statistics reported in May that the total of long-term immigrants to the UK in 2024 was 948,000, that really does seem like a very big number. And it is. But it includes everyone coming to the UK who is changing the normal place where they live. It includes those who’ve come to study here (30 per cent) and those who’ve got a UK-based job (33 per cent).  

The foreign students on full fees raise vital revenue for the universities and subsidise the fees for home students, and those coming to work here make a significant contribution to the economy. Not to mention the legacy of ‘soft’ influence when both return home having had positive experiences of life in the UK. 

Incidentally, and a little out of left field, the immigration figure also includes Brits returning home from living abroad. In 2024 they accounted for 60,000 individuals, or 6.3 per cent of the total. 

Asylum seekers and refugees only make up 15 per cent of the overall number (including the Homes for Ukraine scheme), with those claiming asylum from the small boats only 5 per cent. 

The small boats: don’t get distracted 

Perhaps the main reason for the small boats featuring so prominently in the immigration narrative is the compelling nature of the images the news media can use. Include criminal gangs and the jeopardy of life and death and the result is a heady mix. 

But here’s the thing, the Migration Observatory report that: 

“Between 2018 and 2024, the asylum grant rate for people who arrived by small boat was 68%.” 

Allow that to sink in for a moment: almost seven out of ten of those who arrive by small boat have a legitimate reason to seek asylum in the UK. The real villains here are the criminal gangs, not the passengers they transport. 

Things could look very different if there were safe pathways for these asylum seekers to follow. On these figures the bottom would be blown out of the business model of the criminal gangs that operate the small boats, and they would swiftly move on. Especially if accompanied with the speedy removal of those who have no right to remain in the UK. This would act as a significant disincentive to those who would have previously made an unsuccessful attempt. 

This has to be the way to tackle the presenting problem of the small boats, especially when the ‘push and pull’ influences are given proper consideration.  

‘Push’ and ‘pull’: don’t be misled 

‘Push’ issues are those that cause the migrants to leave their home. Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan have consistently been the most common sources for asylum seekers over the last 30 years. and this tells its own story. Together they underscore that the key ‘push’ factor is people seeking to escape persecution, conflict or danger. 

‘Pull’ influences are why a particular country is the preferred destination. Extensive research has established in the case of the UK the ability to speak English, the presence of family already here and the “general impression that the UK is a good place to live" are far and away the strongest influences. Disproving the popularly advocated myth that it is about the black economy or sponging off the benefits system.  

The right to work: don’t be fooled 

The total cost of the asylum system in the UK was an eye-watering £5.4b in 2023-24, a figure that is largely driven by a backlog in processing applications. On average this took 413 days in 2023-24 with the year-end backlog standing at 91,000. For the 38,000 of those awaiting a response in hotel accommodation, this comes at a cost of £41,000 per person, per year.  

Thankfully the number awaiting a decision is decreasing, but because asylum seekers are not allowed to work until they’ve been waiting for over a year, they cannot contribute to their own support. In France they are allowed to work after six months and in Italy after only 60 days. 

It is, perhaps, a sobering thought that those who have shown the initiative, resilience and tenacity to attempt a passage to a new life, not even deterred by the threat of death, might be the kind of asset to the country and its economy that we need. 

The world we live in: don’t close your eyes 

We cannot uninvent the fact that we live in a globalised world. The preponderance of international supply chains and the fact that 54 per cent of Brits travel abroad on holiday only underlines how ingrained it is in our everyday lives. We are all interconnected to a degree that we cannot possibly comprehend.According to the World Health Organisation, the origin of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China in December 2019 led to between 8-9 million deaths worldwide; the container ship Ever Given, stuck in the Suez Canal in March 2021 cost the global economy $9.6 billion per day; and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had a catastrophic effect on grain and fertilizer prices in sub-Saharan Africa. 

All that to one side, migration to these shores has been part and parcel of our history since before we had a history. From the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans, to more recent arrivals from the Caribbean, South Asia, Poland and Hong Kong this is an integral and ongoing part of the story of the British Isles. It is what has made us British. 

The politics of migration: don’t be seduced 

In these febrile political times, many will be quick to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the immigrants for everything that is wrong. The narrative is a seductive one that makes a visceral connection with listeners. Where the substance of argument is missing emotive language will do the heavy lifting on its own, so look out for speech like this: 

  • Crisis or emergency language: out-of-control, unprecedented, overwhelmed 
  • Metaphors of flooding or invasion: tidal, swamped, relentless 
  • Threatening or dangerous terms: illegal, criminal, extremist 
  • Dehumanising or reductive language: waves, swarms, hordes 
  • Economic or social burden framing: unsustainable, overstretched (services), job-stealing 
  • Warnings of loss: losing our culture and traditions, no-go areas 

It’s the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, commenting on life in the city, who coined the terms ‘mixophobia’ and ‘mixophilia’ to describe some of the dynamics he observed. But I think they can extend to the whole of society, not just our cities. Indeed, with Bauman I think we can even experience both feelings within ourselves at the same. We experience the fear of ‘mixophobia’ – of being involved with strangers – in our  

“… reaction to the mind-boggling, spine-chilling and nerve-breaking variety of human types and lifestyles that [we] meet and rub elbows and shoulders [with] in the streets” 

“Mixophilia”, by contrast, is the joy of being in a different and stimulating environment. 

“The same kaleidoscope-like twinkle and glimmer of the urban scenery, … never short of novelty and surprise, [that] constitutes its difficult-to-resist charm and seductive power.” 

Born a Polish Jew in 1925, Bauman’s family fled to Russia in 1939. As Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds t He maintained that the holocaust was not the breakdown of modern civilisation, but rather the product of it. 

Twenty years ago, he predicted that Europe would be faced with a battle between “two contending facts of the matter”. On one side would be the life-saving role played by immigrants in a fast-aging Europe. On the other, “the power-abetted and power-assisted rise in xenophobic sentiments eagerly recycled into electoral votes”. 

For Bauman “mixophobic paranoia” feeds upon itself and acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. It may temporarily reduce the pain that those afflicted by it feel, but ultimately only makes the condition worse. Rather, “mixophobia” is the symptom of their anxiety, not the cause – acting on it is like “removing the rash while mistaking it for the cure of the illness”. 

If there is to be any hope for him, it is in the cohabitation and interaction with strangers that the future lies. 

So, there it is. As shocking and disturbing as the stories and images of the small boats are, it is not really about the small boats. Sitting beneath the phenomena is the age-old issue of migration, with the sharp and divisive edges of its present-day expression. 

In the late 1990s I was proud of the churches in Croydon rallying together to establish the Refugee Day Centre. In the years that followed it was often groups of churches who took the lead in their own towns and cities as asylum seekers were dispersed around the country. 

It was a practical way to “love our neighbour as ourselves”. In the rallying cry of the Victorian Christian social reformers, “The Fatherhood of God means the brotherhood of man.” 

As the historian Tom Holland has observed it is because Western values are deeply rooted in the Christian tradition that human dignity and the sanctity of life are deeply prized virtues that animate our best intentions and our understanding of what is good. 

In his mid-80s, Bauman wrote: 

“For more than forty years of my life in Leeds I have watched from my window as children returned home from the nearby secondary school. Children seldom walk alone; they prefer walking in groups of friends. That habit has not changed. And yet what I see from my window has changed over the years. Forty years ago, almost every group was ‘single colour’; nowadays, almost none of them are …”