Guards have been posted outside the oldest Protestant church in Iran, a month after the Iranian regime (IRGC) seized the compound. 

St Peter’s Evangelical Church in Tehran, one of the last surviving Christian churches in the country, had been threatened with confiscation and the imprisonment of its congregation. 

Families living in the compound were told to leave and were filmed while being forced to sign documents stating they consented to their removal and accepting they would be arrested if there was an attempt to return, according to sources close to religious freedom watchdog Article 18.

Church leaders were informed they had to leave by 12th August, but the building was stormed by Ministry of Intelligence officials on 12th July to disperse residents. 

The IRGC issued new deeds for the property, which is now being guarded to prevent members from coming back. It was after authorities executed a 30 year-old court order which church members were not aware of. 

United Nations experts have condemned the escalation, stating: “This is not an isolated incident, but the culmination of a long pattern of measures directed against Iran’s Christian community, and in particular against Persian-speaking Christian worship.”

St Peter’s was founded in 1876, located in the centre of the Iranian capital, and had already been ordered to stop Persian-language services a decade ago. 

In June, a former pastor at the church told Premier Christian News that the situation in Iran was “awful” for believers, the regime emboldened to crack down on churches because of the war. 

An evangelical church in Mashhad was demolished in the same month, without explanation or warning.