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Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which has its roots in political Islam, has preached a message of religious freedom as a way to expand liberties for believers in the officially secular country. It has assured the European Union it would respect freedoms for religious minorities. There has been some progress for minorities, but it is halting. The government’s focus seems to be more on assuring religious rights for pious Sunni Muslims, as in ending of the university headscarf ban. Religious minorities still face an uphill struggle to practice as they see fit.

Turkey’s Alevis, some 15-25 million whose faith is rooted in Islam but mixed with other traditions including ….shamanism, form the country’s leargest religious minority but they have never been recognised as a formal religion. This means they can be lumped together with Sunni Muslims, as a recent court case about the mandatory religion classes in state schools showed. The classes, taught in all primary schools, serve as an instruction guide to being Muslim, with topics ranging from how to pray in a mosque to fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

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Alevi Hatice Kose took the education ministry to court to win permission to pull her son out of the classes and change the curriculum to include information about Alevis. She won the case, but the government has said it has no power to change the classes, which it says are protected in Turkey’s constitution.

For more on this, see our feature here. And here’s the full slideshow from the Alevi prayer service pictured above.

The rest of the world often forgets that there are Christian churches dotted across the Muslim world and some of those communities date back to the earliest years of the faith. Fredrik Dahl and Reza Derakhshi from our Tehran bureau recently visited a remote medieval outpost of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their report says:

The last priest left the Black Church more than half a century ago and now the picture on the wall of a former monk’s cell is of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, not Jesus.

But Iran says this medieval Armenian Christian retreat in a mountainous region close to Turkey and Armenia shows it is observing the rights of other faiths.

Read the full story here.

Dahl interviewed Sebouh Sarkissian, the Armenian archbishop of Tehran, for the feature. As a FaithWorld extra, here is the Q&A of their talk:

Armenians make up the largest Christian minority in Iran, their presence dating back to the time of the ancient Persian empire, but their numbers have declined since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Sebouh Sarkissian, Armenian archbishop in Tehran for the past eight years, spoke to Reuters at his office next to the Armenian cathedral in the Iranian capital about the situation for his community in the Islamic Republic.

Q. What do you think of Iran’s application for a medieval Armenian monastery, St Thaddeus Church, also known as the Black Church, to become a United Nations World Heritage site?

A. We have the feeling that the government is taking care of our religious heritage, historical churches and sacred sites … This of course makes us happy.

Q. What would it mean in practical terms?

A. It will be supervised by (an) international body … and it also somehow secures the existence of that church.

Q. So you are well-treated by the authorities?

A. In this manner yes; in keeping, maintaining, the spiritual richness and religious sites of this country.

Q. Any problems facing Armenians in Iran today?

A. Generally speaking, as citizens of this country, we are facing the same difficulties that every Iranian is facing nowadays … The Armenians, since they have been living here for
centuries, they have accommodated themselves to the Iranian lifestyle. Despite having said this, sometimes as a Christian community we face difficulties.

Q. Any examples?

A. Well, for instance, the government has prepared a textbook of religion and they have imposed (a rule) on us to teach that text book… Of course they are not familiar with Christian expressions and mentality … so that is one of the main difficulties.

Q. Do you think this book will be removed?

A. Once when I was talking to the (government) minister I asked him: ‘would you accept … that I prepare a text book on Islam, on the Koran, and ask some other Christians to come and teach it in your schools? Would you accept that?’ He started laughing.

Q. Does your community experience discrimination in Iran?

A. Not as such … I think it is an innovation from the West, that people are coming and always asking: is there discrimination in this country? I can tell you that I’ve felt
discrimination even in the United states, even in Europe.

Q. Can you drink alcohol, even though it is banned in Iran?

A. Alcoholic drinks are allowed, not officially of course … we use wine during the mass, the worship, and that’s why they somehow allow us to do (it) … but in general the
usage of alcohol is not good. It is not encouraged.

Q. Have many Armenians left Iran since the revolution?

A. The process of migration regarding the Armenian community started even before the revolution … Immigration and migration, it is a phenomenon all over the world … not
anything peculiar to Iran and Iranian society.”

Q. You don’t believe it is a sign they are not well-treated?

A. No, because even Iranians are emigrating from this country, not only Christians, not only Armenians.

Q. Do you see a future for the Armenian community in Iran?

A. Yes, definitely, our existence is rooted in this soil, in this country … I don’t think we are in danger. If we are in danger it means the whole society is in danger.