New Mission Created for Turkish and Persian Speakers in Europe
Today, Church News published an article announcing the calling of a mission president and his wife to lead the new Europe Central Turkic and Persian-Speaking Mission. This appears to be a newly created mission, as no mission currently operates under this name. However, it essentially represents a reinstatement of the former Central Eurasian Mission, which operated beginning in 2015.
The Church previously organized the Central Eurasian Mission with headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, although the mission was later relocated to Bulgaria. From 2012 to 2018, foreign missionaries served in Turkey as volunteers who taught by referral. In 2018, the mission headquarters were relocated to Sofia, Bulgaria, and the mission was consolidated with the Bulgaria Sofia Mission. In 2023, the Church organized the Europe Central Area District, which currently includes branches in Turkey and Azerbaijan and provides ecclesiastical support to isolated members and groups in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—none of which have officially organized branches (but all have had a member group in the past and may still have member groups today). As of year-end 2024, there were fewer than 1,000 Latter-day Saints in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and the Central Asian Turkic republics combined.
Importantly, the creation of the new mission appears primarily motivated by the need to better coordinate missionary efforts among the millions of Turkish and Persian speakers living in Central Europe, particularly in countries such as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Although the headquarters of the new mission have not been announced, they are likely to be located in this region. It is unclear how many European nations will be serviced by the new mission.
The Church has experienced its greatest missionary success with Persian-speakers among peoples from the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. There may be as many as 10,000 Persian Latter-day Saints worldwide. Several Persian-language branches now operate in the United States and Turkey, in addition to multiple member groups in other countries such as Canada.
It is also worth noting that the creation of this new mission does not appear to be connected to the recent outbreak of war between Israel and Iran. Rather, it reflects the steady increase in convert baptisms among Persian and Turkish-speaking populations in Europe over the past decade. The sustained growth in this demographic has reached a point where a dedicated, multinational mission is now warranted to better serve their needs.
Outlook and Future Developments
Prospects appear favorable for the creation of additional member groups—and potentially the first Persian- or Turkish-speaking branches in Central Europe—in the coming months and years. In some congregations, Persian or Turkic members already constitute a significant minority of active membership.
However, the outlook for missionary activity in Turkey, Iran, and Central Asia remains poor for the foreseeable future due to longstanding restrictions on religious freedom, war, and the transient nature of many converts, which limits the development of stable local leadership.
15 comments:
Missionaries served in Tehran I believe in the 1960s attached to the London England mission if I remember correctly. Perhaps one of you investigative geniuses could confirm or refute my allegation. I also believe the church had a meetinghouse in Tehran. While living in Russia, a good Iranian family joined the church. How they got to Russia as refugees was remarkable. Ultimately they were sent toTwin Falls Idaho under the united nation relocation of refugees.
Continued from the above; Senior missionaries served in Istanbul Turkey in the early 2000s administered from the Europe East area headquartered in Moscow Russia. It was a beautiful place to visit.
I can't exactly contribute much, but my stake president's father is a convert from Iran. Whether he was baptized before or after immigrating here, I don't know.
There was briefly an Iran Tehran mission in the 1970s, until the Shah was overthrown. I don’t think it was very big, or lasted all that long, but it definitely existed. I know two men who served in that mission, and an Iranian who joined the Church during that time and now lives in the US.
There is a Persian (Farsi) -speaking branch in Newport Beach, CA, and I believe there are several others in California and the US. The Persian/Iranian community is pretty big in parts of Southern California.
My YSA ward here in London has baptized two Persian-speaking converts from Iran and had a third move in in the last 9 months. They are all great, solid converts, some of our most active.
I do have to add here that the restrictions on missionary work in places like Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt are referring to the permanent physical assignment of proselyting missionaries in these countries. At least since Covid, finding via social media and teaching via Zoom in these countries appears quite unrestricted and there is definitely a sizable number of investigators being taught and baptized by missionaries located in other countries (some with language-specific assignments or at least secondary assignments). Missionaries frequently travel to Turkey and less frequenty to Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia (those four I know of affirmatively) to interview prospective converts and to baptize them. These efforts have grown to such a point where it makes sense to formalize them more. I would not be surprised if an equivalent mission is eventually created also for Arabic speakers, as there is also an increasing number of native Arab speakers joining the Church in Europe.
There is also a pretty steady stream of non-proselyting service and member support missionaries who are being assigned to the Middle East's more stable areas. For example, one of my wife's aunt and uncle are currently serving as member support missionaries in Qatar.
I agree that this area is by far the part of the world where our membership is the most transient and fledging, but that doesn't mean that all these countries are going to be hostile to us.
the leaders of the new mission are Peter and Carla Huber. They are Swiss born residents of Switzerland. They are part of a ward in the Bern Switzerland Stake.
Brother Huber served a mission in the England Bristol Mission. Probably about 1980. The Hubers also served as senior missionaries in the Europe Central Area.
The interesting thing is that Brother Huber is currently district president. Of what district though? My guess is he is the district president over the Europe Central Area District in Turkey. By making him mission president he can issue temple recommends, advance men to the Melchizedek Priesthood and handle other such matters.
There may be missionary deployment advantages to this set up, but there is also, if the mission has say over members in Turkey, an advantage to administering the church. Because so many things cannot be done by a district president and have to be done by a mission president outside a stake (or I guess by the area presidency if there is no mission), this is a practical move for the church in the area.
Look out wall of text incoming.
I took a Persian 101 class at BYU. I’ve also been to the Persian branch in Newport Beach.
California is probably the most popular place for Iranians (Persians) to immigrate to in the US since the fall of the Shah in 1979. You hear Persian a lot in certain parts of Southern California.
The Newport Beach Bonita Canyon branch (Persian) was established in 2019. The branch president is Iranian and a super spiritual, kind man. First counselor is an American who doesn’t speak Persian but was a former ward mission leader of the University Park ward that had many Persian members join. The branch has a linger longer pot luck every Sunday with delicious Persian food.
There are 6 young Persian speaking missionaries and a senior couple and mission leaders and other people from the stake will come to attend the branch. They even had Sister Yee of the Relief Society Presidency show up once which was a blessing. The branch receives lots of support.
I’ve heard from a stake leader that the branch is the fastest growing unit in the stake with many baptisms a year. The branch has a linger-longer every Sunday which helps build unity. When I went in December there were probably around 30 people in attendance including Americans and missionaries. Probably 15 or so Persians though I heard from other people who attend that that are usually more than that on other weeks. Many Persians have joined the church over the years in Southern California and were already well integrated in their English speaking wards before they started to attend the Persian branch. In my Persian 101 class there was a third generation member of the church of Iranian descent who got called to Washington DC Persian speaking. The grandma of this girl joined the church in California and she attends the Persian branch.
A returned missionary who served in the branch in 2019 said Persians love to go to activities and will never turn down an invitation to go to Church even if they don’t have a testimony of the gospel. They have a huge new year’s celebration every year where the Persian members in LA, San Diego, and Orange County meet together and there’s like 120+ in attendance from what I’ve heard.
I met another guy at BYU who served in the Bulgaria mission Persian speaking 2018-2020. He was based in Bulgaria but taught Iranians living in Turkey by Zoom. There is a Persian branch in Turkey right now.
There are also Persian speaking groups in LA, and Canada, and lots of missionaries being called to Germany and Austria Persian speaking, maybe to teach the Afghan refugees who speak a dialect of Persian called Dari or Pashto. Interestingly, my brother who is serving right now in French Guiana says there are many afghanis there as refugees trying to get into France and one of them who fled for becoming a Christian discovered the Church in Brazil and has a strong testimony of the BOM. The only thing preventing him from joining the church is he lives very far from the one church building in the territory but he might join in France when he moves there.
The economy is only getting worse in Iran so many more Iranians are coming to California and the Persians who leave Iran are usually the ones who despise the current Shi’a Muslim government the most. From what my Persian teacher (he used to be an interpreter for the Air Force) has told me almost all the people in Iran hate the Islamic government except that the military, who benefit from the oil money, is the only thing preventing the country from having a revolution hence many people just choose to leave.
In fact there are two kinds of citizens in Iran. One who is very pro-Islam and align themselves with Arabia, where Islam comes from. And there’s another larger group who align themselves with Persia pre-the Islamic invasion and who think Islam has only brought misery to Persian would prefer that Iran be secular. The Persians have traditionally been very proud of their heritage and surprisingly still look at fondness when the Persian empire controlled the Middle East and regret how a bunch of Arabic peasants were able to toppled their empire. In fact I read in a book published recently that only 1-2% of Iranians go to mosque. My Persian teacher has told me Iranians are the most lax about Islamic rituals of all the Middle East countries so few do prayers or go to mosque.
My sense is that the Church is currently focusing a lot on Persians. They seem like the people who are the most receptive to the gospel from the Middle East. If the current Islamic government does fall and religious freedom is granted I don’t it being an easy ride for the Church though. I can imagine the Muslim clergy pressing for making conversions illegal and limiting public proselytizing similar to the anti-conversion laws of India and how they restrict foreign missionaries. Though there is a possibility after a regime change where most Iranians reject Islam and either become atheist, return to tradition Zoroastrianism, or become Christian.
One of the new general authorities (whose bio they may publish soon) Brik Eyre, his wife's maiden name is Susan Arimizedeh, or something like that. Her father is Iranian, and at least was a Muslim. She was born in Salt Lake City and her mother was a Latter-day Saint and US born..
Here is a 2006 article from the Deseret News that talks about a speech given at BYU by the first Iranian to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.deseret.com/2006/6/22/19960002/iranian-shares-story-of-lds-conversion/
Other Matt here...
It's about time this happened.
In addition to the Bonita Canyon Persian Branch in Newport Beach, that's also one in Del Mar near San Diego.
Up in LA County, there's talk of creating Persian branches in Westwood (next to LA Temple) and in Encino in the San Fernando Valley.
Very good points. Definitely makes sense to have a mission president between the area presidency and related district(s) & mission branches even if the mission has few if any young traditional proselyting missionaries. Sounds like online missionaries are in the mix. There may be some functions that can be handled either by an Area or mission that can be redistributed.
I know borther Huber. Yes he is the president of the Europe Central Area District. As fa as I know he did that calling while still residing in Switzerland. Now that he is mission president I wondeer if that will change. He also just reached Swiss retirement age.
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