David Klein provides info here on Iranian Protestant Christians and and evangelical Christian communities in Iran, who are largely made up of converts from Muslim families, or at least nominally Muslim families. Despite this, Protestant Christianity is the fastest growing religion in Iran, with estimates ranging between 1 and 3 million believers. Religious expression is forced to take place underground and in home churches or, more often than not, online.

“When an Iranian comes to Christ, they say, ‘I’d rather be online and watch you and get your teaching, and not go to a house church,’ even though we encourage them,” Shariat said. “The reason they give me is very convincing. They’re saying, ‘why should I go to a house church and put my life in danger? Because if one of us is not careful, the rest of us get in trouble; attending a house church is a crime.’”

He noted that those arrested for gathering in or running underground churches have received long prison sentences, as much as 15 or 20 years. Human rights watchdog groups focused on Iran noted that prosecutions of Christians jumped six-fold between 2024 and 2025, with over 300 cases in Tehran alone.

“The Christian community in Iran is facing a crisis,” Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said in a 2025 press release. “The Iranian authorities are abducting growing numbers of Christians and throwing absurd national security charges at them in order to imprison them for years for doing nothing other than peacefully practicing their faith.

“The Islamic Republic is terrified of its growing Christian convert community and is trying to crush it the way it crushes all perceived threats: through sham prosecutions in kangaroo courts, violent brutality, and years locked behind bars.”

Shariat added, “Sometimes I feel the government of Iran believes in the power of the church more than we do, because they are so alarmed when Christians get together.”

For those reasons, among others, converts to Christianity have been among the first looking for escape from the Islamic Republic, but it’s no easy task.

“Leaving Iran is not easy. … they know leaving Iran means years of suffering,” Shariat said.

“The connection is very hard. We only have a few people who can contact us through Starlink,” he said. “Not many people have Starlink, and having a Starlink dish is punished by execution.”

“We have many believers and leaders inside Iran that we haven’t been able to have continuous connection with since Thursday,” he added.