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Converting to Christianity 'the easiest way' to get asylum for Iranians in Canada
VANCOUVER — At a downtown Vancouver church, a Christian baptism takes place during a recent Sunday service. Amid the incense and infants dressed in white getting ready to receive the holy water is a group of four Iranian nationals also waiting to receive adult baptisms.
As with past baptisms, some of them will likely not return to the church after receiving their baptismal certificate. It is simply a means to an end — claiming asylum.
When a parishioner congratulates one of the newly baptized Farsi speakers, mentioning Iran’s significant Christian and Jewish populations, as well as Muslim, they reply in heavily accented English.
“I hate Muslims.”
While not quite the Christian message one might have expected, the conversion of Iranians to Christianity has been an increasingly popular trend over the past decade (one study suggests as many as 1.2 million Christian converts in Iran alone).
It seems partly motivated by contempt for Iran’s authoritarian regime, which is conflated with the faith of over a billion people — the same sentiment shared by crowds of anti-regime protesters flooding the downtown cores of Canadian cities most weekends since late December.
But it’s also a pragmatic way to gain asylum at a time when war and sanctions make Iran a difficult place to live, say community leaders, experts and other insiders.
In 2025, there were just over 7,100 asylum claims in Canada from Iranian nationals, the third largest number of claims by country of alleged persecution after India and Haiti. Approximately half — 3,456 — were accepted, according to figures from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, while 11,448 Iranian asylum claims are still pending. It is unknown how many of those were claims related to religious conversion.
While there is technically religious freedom for “native” Iranian Christians, mainly Armenians and Assyrians, conversion from Islam to another faith can be grounds for persecution — including execution — based on Iran’s apostasy laws.
The conversion route to asylum and immigration fraud has been well publicized in the United Kingdom, where a 2024 public inquiry by the Home Secretary held Church of England officials to account for alleged complicity in fraud and collusion with people smugglers. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, refuted claims that the church was a “ conveyor belt for asylum seeker fake conversions .”
Former Canadian Border Services officers and community leaders say it is happening here too. While there are undoubtedly many sincere seekers amid the converted, the coveted baptismal certificate has become a commodity for many seeking refuge from Iran, be they dissidents, economic migrants or, as some contend, vehicles for IRGC members to enter the country.
“It’s the easiest way to get asylum,” said Kelly Sundberg, a former CBSA agent turned criminology professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, “and not only for Iranians.”
He told the National Post that during his time as an officer he saw dozens of bogus asylum claims from Iranians based on fake conversions to Christianity, but he “turned a blind eye” to “people who were just trying to have a better life” and who, in his estimation, posed no security threat. In fact, he said that he and his understaffed colleagues were “more concerned about Christian Canadians embracing Islam.”
In the past few years, he said, that has changed dramatically.
After the protests in Iran in 2022, he contends, members of the regime “saw the writing on the wall” and were coming to Canada for both their own survival and often to spy upon immigrant communities.
According to some published reports there are “hundreds” of Iranians connected to the regime in Canada, and 20 “senior Iranian officials” living in Vancouver, which has one of the largest Iranian diasporas in North America after Los Angeles and Toronto.
Canada officially listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity in June 2024. There have been reports of IRGC people pretending to be dissidents to hide their identity.
On March 10 in Parliament, Green Party leader Elizabeth May expressed concerns about IRGC agents converting to Christianity as a means to claim asylum in Canada.
“The way you can tell who is an IRGC member,” said Farid Rohani, a prominent Vancouver businessman and Iranian community member “is if they convert to Judaism.” He was only half-joking. Rohani, a past Vancouver chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, said there have been cases of Iranians converting to Judaism as a means of both seeking asylum and establishing a deep cover.
Rohani, who is a Bahai, said that his own religious community has thwarted such immigration fraud by making a rule that no Iranian national can convert before they have received permanent resident status.
He is concerned about the fraudulent conversions because they are “unfair to legitimate asylum seekers who get pushed to the back of the line.” Rohani, who participates in many interfaith activities, said he has spoken to Christian priests locally about the issue, including an Anglican minister, who seemed unconcerned and told him, “the word of God can change things.”
“I think the church is trying to raise an army,” he said. “Whoever has more soldiers in the end is the winner.” What is certain is that traditional mainstream Canadian churches are seeing an alarming drop in numbers and welcome new parishioners.
Rohani doubts that Iranian Muslims who convert to Christianity are at risk if they return to Iran.
“I had two Iranian employees who, after their work visas ran out, applied for asylum based on conversion to Christianity.” They returned to Iran several times without incident, he said. The danger, it seems, is greater for Christian converts who practice their new faith openly in Iran.
At Saint Christopher’s Anglican Church in West Vancouver, about 20 per cent of the 80-year-old parish is Farsi speaking. Rector Jonathan Pinkney, who had baptismal and book of common prayer liturgy translated into Farsi via a grant from the diocese, told the National Post that those who convert to Christianity are sincere, and that only a handful of the approximately 20 new parishioners who have joined in the past four years were seeking asylum.
“Bishop John Stephens” he told the Post “is aware of the situation (around bogus conversions) but has asked us to exercise caution while remaining open hearted.”
Pinkney employs an approach centred around “community building.” He preaches the gospel of integration. To that end, he ensures connection by having new Iranian parishioners assigned positions in the choir, kitchen and various other committees alongside established parishioners.
He also contends that fear of persecution is legitimate, and that his Iranian parishioners have expressed “genuine concern” about returning to their homeland.
At a special Norouz — Iranian New Year — lunch held in the parish hall this past Sunday, 94-year-old parishioner George Richards told the Post that the new Iranian converts have injected much needed life and energy into the congregation. ‘They’ve been a real boon to this parish,” he said.
A young man who can’t be identified or photographed to protect his extended family in Iran said that, religion aside, above all the church is a place of “social integration for newcomers.”
With a huge influx of immigrants and refugees but little in the way of support for integration into communities, he notes, there are few opportunities for Iranians and others to connect with locals. “My first experience of being invited to a Canadian home for dinner came through the church,” he said.
While against the U.S.-Israeli war on his homeland, he said he can’t share his views publicly for fear of reprisal in the Iranian diaspora community. But rather than demonizing Islam like some of his fellow converts, he sees a connection between all the great faiths.
As for the “fake converts” he said, “Even ‘scammers’ can come here and find community. Why not? All are welcome.”
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