Church that christened 200 Iranians in five years
TWO hundred asylum seekers were baptised over a five-year period in a church in Stockton-on-Tees near Middlesbrough.
All were Iranians, who currently make up the biggest national group of people entering Britain to ask for refugee status.
The support that Stockton Parish Church offers is advertised on a sign next to the front door, alongside its service timetable, and there are posters inside. The interest of Iranians asylum seekers has transformed the congregation of the church.
Eight years ago churchgoers numbered fewer than 20, but there are now 240, over a half of whom are Iranians. The church places messages in Farsi on its Facebook page and holds events in the language.
One man, who arrived from Iran five years ago and attends the church once or twice a week, said: ‘The [church’s] asylum centre will help with asylum forms. If you have a problem here, say if you have to go to court of something, you can just go and speak to the vicar and he will help.’
The church’s vicar, the Reverend Mark Miller, has assisted refugees in their asylum claims. In one case he provided a reference for an Iranian woman known as H who was appearing at a Home Office tribunal.
He wrote: ‘My own observations of [H] suggest that she does indeed believe in trusting God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Her participation in Sunday services is not passive, but active.’
In this case a previous refusal of asylum was overturned, with the tribunal believing her evidence about religious persecution in Iran.
Mr Miller declined to comment.