SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.2 - Armenians

Our group was mostly Christian, including four ministers, and two different Armenian Christian patriarchs took time to meet with us. Armenians are the largest and least problematic Christian group in Iran.
SOURCE: "least problematic" I'm pretty sure it was Robin Wright who said the Armenians have the easiest time of all the minorities in Iran. (see: Wright, Robin, The Last Great Revolution : Turmoil And Transformation In Iran, New York : Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 2000. p.206-216)
COMMENT: Jews are associated with Israel and there are some verses in the Quran that can be interpreted against them. The very small protestant community is associated with British and American influence and with conversion from Islam. Armenians are an ethnic group, and so not exactly passionate about converting non-Armenians to the Armenian Orthodox Church.

They have three dioceses here and the constitution grants them two seats in parliament.
SOURCE: http://www.servat.unibe.ch/law/icl/ir00000_.html article 64 of the constitution

Somewhere between one and one and a half million Armenians were killed in the Armenian Genocide in neighboring Turkey during World War I.
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide

They have not suffered so in Iran. Maybe their biggest concern here is emigration. A couple million Iranians have left the Islamic Republic for North America, Europe or other prosperous places since the revolution, but the rate is much higher for non-Muslims. Most of them have left Iran and of the estimated 50,000 Armenians in the Tehran area about 2 or 3 thousand leave each year.
SOURCE: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_12_125/ai_n27497054/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1
COMMENT: Actually, I was guessing. The article above says there are 50,000 Armenians in Iran but its more like 300,000, so I think the author misheard the Bishop and meant 50,000 in Tehran.

Tehran Patriarch

On the subject of interfaith dialogue - dear to the heart of the delegation - he made an interesting point. ... how do you talk to another faith when both of you believe yours is the one true faith to which everyone should and eventually will, join? Particularly when your church is outnumbered a several hundred to one in the land you live in and the outnumbering religion enforces the placing of pictures of its supreme leader in your very own rectory. ... Instead of preaching at the others, we show our faith by what we do, we preach by example not by lecture. ... A nice finesse I thought in a part of the world where ... there's too much religion and not enough Christianity ..."
COMMENT: The Islamic regime has zero tolerance for Christian proselytizing but isn’t very worried about Armenians doing this because, as I said above, their church is tied to an ethnic group and language. Still Christianity, like Islam, is an evangelizing faith. Proselytizing is out of favor among Liberal Christians of the West as insensitive - after all it implies there's something wrong with the proselytizee’s religion. But in the Islamic world and the parts of Christianity that are growing - evangelizing is not just acceptable, it's central.

As to how sensitive the issue of proselytizing is, consider this off hand comment: One of the delegates asked the Bishop what the Armenians did for charity. Visit the community members and see they're doing OK, he said. What about helping the Muslims? she asked. (A good christian doesn't just confine himself to good works among his own!) Not an option, he said. It might be construed as missionary work.

Armenian Cultural Center

The outdoor lounge and dining is near the club’s two pools. The pool has separate hours for males and females "in accordance with” the laws of the Islamic Republic. In addition the women bathers are protected from view by these very high panels. This way people living in apartment buildings a across the freeway won’t see them. The Armenian women didn’t insist on it. Some pious non-Armenian people in the apartment buildings did.

I found this out talking to a guide at the center. The pious, complaining neighbors were quite a ways a way from the pool, so their complaint seems pretty ridiculous.
They were not Armenians (I assume they were Muslims but the guide didn't say that in so many words).

Esfahan Patriarch

According to the 2004 International Religious Freedom Report: “With few exceptions”, the private schools of the minority Jews and Christians in Iran must have Muslim directors. The Ministry of Education must approve all their textbooks, including religious texts. Christians and Jews and other minorities may provide religious instruction in their own languages, but if they do they must translate the books into Persian to get them approved, which costs a bundle.
SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35497.htm

Not very informative, but indiscretion could get them in trouble not me.
COMMENT: The Islamic government's caution/paranoia about minorities is reflected in his qualification to its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and promise "to treat non-Muslims in conformity with ethical norms and the principles of Islamic justice and equity, and to respect their human rights."
"This principle applies to all who refrain from engaging in conspiracy or activity against Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran." http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/iran/Iran-04.htm