Memorial Services Held on 20th Anniversary of Iranian Pastors Martyrdom
ICC Note: Pastor Haik Hovsepian gave everything for his faith. In 1994, Pastor Haik, the superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church in Iran, was murdered just days after holding a successful protest for the release of a fellow pastor. At the time his murder sparked widespread media coverage and drew attention to the lack of religious freedom in Iran. Sadly, two decades later, little has improved for religious minorities in the country. Today Christians continue to face “systematic persecution” and imprisonment. Perhaps the most well-known religious prisoner in the West currently, Pastor Saeed Abedini, has been in imprisoned in Iran for over a year.
01/23/2014 Iran (WWM) – Memorial services are being held in Tehran, London and California to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Haik Hovsepian, an Iranian pastor hailed by many Christians as a martyr.
Hovsepian vanished on January 19, 1994, three days after his protests helped to secure the release of fellow Iranian pastor Mehdi Dibaj, who had been imprisoned for 10 years and sentenced to death for apostasy.
Hovsepian, 49, was found with multiple stab wounds to the chest and later buried in an Islamic cemetery after police claimed they had been unable to identify his body.
His family were eventually notified of his death on January 30 and arranged a Christian reburial.
His death hit global news headlines around the world due to his prominent role in Iran’s Church.
The pastor had not only been outspoken in his defence for Dibaj, but also against a perceived lack of religious freedom in Iran in general.
In November 1992, he invited the UN’s Human Rights Special Representative for Iran, Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, to mediate “true religious freedom” in Iran, based “not on ethnic or religious identity, but on personal conviction”.
The pastor also refused to sign a document stating that Christians in Iran enjoyed full religious freedom.
An ethnic Armenian, Hovespian’s first role as pastor came at the age of 17, when he assumed the leadership of a church in Tehran’s Majidieh suburb. Following his marriage to Takoosh Ginagosia in 1966, he then pastored Gorgan Church in north Iran.
In 1969, the couple were involved in a severe car accident, which claimed the life of their six-month-old son. The couple were also badly injured and doctors feared they might never walk again, but they made a remarkable recovery and, several months later, returned to Gorgan Church, where they served for a further 12 years.
They moved to Tehran in 1981, when Hovsepian became superintendent of the Assemblies of God (AOG) Church in Iran. In 1986, he was appointed the Council of Protestant Churches’ first chairman.
Hovsepian was survived by his wife and their four children, Rebecca, Joseph, Gilbert and Andre, all of whom now live in California. His family are holding a public memorial service on Saturday (January 25) evening at Glendale Presbyterian Church in Glendale, California.
A memorial service was held in Tehran on Sunday (January 19) and flowers were placed upon Hovsepian’s grave. Meanwhile, the Iranian Church in London plans to hold a celebration in the summer to mark the deaths of Haik Hovsepian and two other pastors killed that year in Iran.
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