I've just read a remarkable article on the Iranian Church from Mission Frontiers Magazine. It's available on pdf, but the links are a little funny, so you have to download the entire issue, but it's worth it.

As the Iranian Islamic Revolution struggles to hold on early in its fourth decade of life, many Iranians are risking trouble by exploring other religions. Meanwhile, the Armenian minority group, starting in the sixties and continuing today, has developed a missionary mindset toward the Persian majority, including taking the incredible step of beginning to hold Church services in Farsi (the Persian language).

As any minority group or immigrant group can testify, the Armenians are doing this at the risk of their particular identity; this is a tremendous sacrifice. To hold services in the language of their at-times antagonists includes doing away with all your songs; these Armenian Christians have penned hundreds of Farsi-Language hymns.

The result: Christianity is losing its Armenian-identification in the eyes of their Muslim neighbors. In the last ten years, the pseudonymous author says,

A new term has become widespread throughout Iran, which can be literally translated “Persian-Christian,” or as they would conceptually translate it “Muslim-Christian” (farsimasihi).

For centuries, it was assumed that if you were a Christian, you were Armenian. If someone saw you wearing a cross they might ask, “Are you Armenian?” or “Have you become Armenian?” But today the question has changed. This new identity is highly significant, testifying to the presence of a truly indigenous, self-reproducing movement.

And this giving-up of the self is having a very big impact, if the author's uncited surveys can be trusted.

Recent nationwide surveys reveal that over 70% of the population is watching Christian satellite programs. These same surveys indicate that at least one million have already become believers, and many millions more are on the verge.

This growth has happened so fast, the underground church can hardly keep apace. In one example, a house church that began with two people several years ago has now multiplied into over twenty groups. The leader of this network remarked,

“Starting churches in Iran is easy! Everywhere you go to evangelize, people are ready to receive the gospel, or they have already become believers through satellite broadcasts.”

Training leaders is also easy, remarks another leader. The government has left young people with nothing to do. So believers spend time with one another everyday. They are constantly gathering for prayer, Bible study and evangelism. When a group reaches 25 people, they divide in half and begin again. Within two years, a new believer is expected to become a leader of a new house-fellowship and a discipler of new leaders.

So even if these national surveys overstate conversions by as much as a factor of ten, this is a trend in Persian Christianity not seen since the 600s of the Christian era.