{"id":503913,"date":"2026-02-27T22:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503913\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:04:10","slug":"this-montreal-church-has-baptized-more-than-140-iranians-since-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503913\/","title":{"rendered":"This Montreal church has baptized more than 140 Iranians since 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

As participants logged into St Jax Church<\/a>\u2019s weekly Bible study on Feb. 3, the Zoom call filled with the warm echoes of \u201csalam baradar\u201d and \u201csalam khahar\u201d\u2014peace, brother, and peace, sister. The study, held in Farsi, is one of the services the Montreal church has recently added to address the growing influx of Iranian congregants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

St Jax has baptized over 140 Iranians since 2020, when it opened as a new Anglican church plant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe growth of our Iranian community actually started with a person who was a very dynamic community leader and came here saying, \u2018I\u2019m definitely not a Muslim. I\u2019m definitely not a Christian, either. However, I know a lot of Iranians who are trying to explore Christianity, and I\u2019ve looked into where the best churches for them are. It may as well be here,\u2019\u201d recalls senior pastor Rev. Graham Singh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Iran is predominantly a Muslim nation, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian and Baha\u2019i communities have rich histories in Iran and continue to gather as minorities, often at risk of persecution under the Islamic theocracy that has ruled since the 1979 Revolution. Although apostasy is punishable by death under the Islamic regime, Christian conversion among Iranians born Muslim is a growing movement both within the country and across the diaspora living in the West. Now, as Iran reels from levels of governmental violence that haven\u2019t been seen since the revolution, Montreal\u2019s Iranians are finding comfort at St Jax.<\/p>\n

Christian conversion from Islam as a supernatural sensory experience<\/p>\n

Reading John 8:7, instructor Pourya Zanganeh asked the attendees if anyone had ever witnessed a stoning. No one raised their hands but him. He added, \u201cI have, when I was three or four years old. It\u2019s one of the sights I will never be able to erase from my brain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[The Islamic clerics] scared us all our lives with threats of burning,\u201d said one attendee with a sigh as the class prepared to discuss \u201cLet he who has not sinned cast the first stone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another congregant at St Jax, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of reprisal for critiquing Islam, shared that her faith in Islam began to waver when she began reading the Bible simply as an intellectual exercise. After a time, she returned to the Qur\u2019an to translate it from Arabic to Farsi, and became \u201cterrified of Islam\u2026. I would read Surah Al-Nasr or Surah Al-Ahzab [chapters of the Qur\u2019an]\u2026 and see war, bloodshed, killing. I saw that reflected in the regime\u2019s actions, but the [New Testament] spoke to me only of peace and forgiving even your enemies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

More on Broadview:<\/p>\n

Zanganeh, who before converting was a devout disciple of revolutionary Islamist thinker Ali Shariati, immigrated to Canada after facing hostility from Iranian authorities. He was friends with an Assyrian couple in Iran, whose generosity captivated Zanganeh and made him curious about Christianity. But it wasn\u2019t until he moved to Canada and had free access to the Bible in Farsi (the New Testament is mostly available in Armenian or Assyrian scripts in Iran) that he experienced what he describes as his main testimonies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was living away from my family in Canada and \u2026\u00a0 under a lot of pressure. So one day at the metro, I decided to end it all. As I saw the train\u2019s light, I stepped on the yellow line, ready to jump, and I even noticed the driver get scared. But someone literally pulled me back,\u201d Zangandeh said. \u201cI came home, wailing and reading the Bible until I got to John 14:1, \u2018Don\u2019t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.\u2019 I fell asleep on that verse, but woke up to the notification sounds of my wife and son\u2019s immigration files being approved.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was then that Zanganeh decided to be baptized at St Jax, and to continue the rest of his and his family\u2019s immigration case as religious asylum seekers. He said he also had a vision that led him to volunteer to lead Bible study.<\/p>\n

Linda Darwish is an associate professor of religious studies at St. Francis Xavier University and a member of St. James United in Antigonish, N.S. She specializes in Muslim-Christian relations and Iranian Shi\u2019ism. In a study published in 2017<\/a>, she analyzed the narratives of 17 Iranian Muslim converts to Christianity in Canada and found that religious conversion is often the result of a supernatural sensory experience beyond a cognitive or intellectual shift, similar to Zanganeh\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n

\u201cConversion is a momentous change that represents something so contrary to the way they\u2019ve been brought up that it kind of calls for something from outside of themselves and not just their own thinking and reasoning,\u201d Darwish explained. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in that space of in-between things, maybe facing major decisions, you\u2019re open to new input. It could be a personal crisis. Often it was loneliness from being in Canada, domestic issues or a health problem, and when that miraculous experience is linked to something like a specific prayer, then the event could take on meaning in a way that is defining for a person\u2019s identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iranian converts find unconditional love at St Jax<\/p>\n

Starting Dec. 28, 2025, a series of anti-regime demonstrations have erupted across Iran. Protests escalated on Jan. 8 and 9, resulting in a brutal crackdown from the regime. According to estimates<\/a> from U.S.-based organization Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA<\/a>), more than 7,000 people have been confirmed killed, with an estimated 11,700 deaths still under investigation. The state also imposed a nationwide internet and telephone blackout, unprecedented<\/a> in scale and length, that restricted both domestic and international communications as it carried out its violent suppression. Over the past few weeks, the Islamic regime and the United States have been engaging in negotiations over Iran\u2019s nuclear program and U.S. sanctions against the country. The previous attempt to reach a deal failed last June, when Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran and U.S. strikes targeted Iranian nuclear facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the threat of war looms over the region and the Islamic regime carries out executions<\/a> of arrested protestors, Iranians in Canada are stuck in a grim news cycle. Those who are in need of community in Montreal have found a safe and welcoming home at St Jax. As nearly half of the congregation is now Iranian, the church offers live translation for its Sunday services and has customized its introduction to Christianity course, Alpha<\/a>, for Farsi speakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of people in our Iranian community who are leaders and changemakers is very significant,\u201d said Singh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Psychological, intellectual and material factors may all drive conversion \u2014 religious trauma from the regime, asylum claims for refugee status or a desire to assimilate and integrate within Western societies. But an almost-universal experience among the Iranian converts at St Jax who shared testimonies with Broadview\u00a0 was the unconditional love they found in Jesus Christ and at the Anglican church.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my experience, Iranians in general have a deep hunger and sensitivity to spirituality,\u201d said Darwish.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve known many Iranians who have said, \u2018Since the revolution, since this form of Islam has been over us, it has turned us against Islam. But that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019ve turned against God. We still want to find God through another way.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Ghazal Azizi is a writer and fact-checker in Montreal.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As participants logged into St Jax Church\u2019s weekly Bible study on Feb. 3, the Zoom call filled with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,45084,2338],"class_list":["post-503913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-faith","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}