Christianity in Iran goes back to the Apostolic Age, when it was first established in Edessa and Adiabene. However, for doctrinal and ecclesiastical reasons, the Church in the East separated from the Antiochian Syrian Church and proclaimed itself the ‘Church of the East. Buttressed by their faith and zeal, these Christians were moved to evangelize in Central Asia and China, before and after the coming of Islam. Historic circumstances, especially the invasion of Timur Lenk and many bloody conflicts in later days, caused membership in this Church and its sister Churches to dwindle to small communities living in Urmia-Salmas and northern Iraq. In the seventeenth century, the Armenian Apostolic Church was founded in Iran when Shah Abbas permitted a community of deportees to settle in the country. Roman Catholic missions were established early in the seventeenth century and Protestant ones in the eighteenth. Today, there are Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches in Iran. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the war in Iraq has made the future of Christian communities precarious, but the Muslim majority can and must ameliorate the situation by granting these Christians all of the rights and privileges of citizenship. The future of Christianity in the Middle East is subject not only to external circumstances, but to internal ones as well. The ongoing Christian-Muslim dialogue, in which Iran is a strong participant, is a good omen that brings hope to the small Christian communities in the Islamic Republic of Iran. “But they were all amazed and marveled, saying, ‘Behold, are not all these that are speaking Galileans? And how have we heard each his own language in which he was born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopotamia…” Acts II:7-9.