For the fourth year in a row, a Christian pastor celebrated Christmas in an Iranian prison cell.
Pastor Farshid Fathi was separated from his family in 2010 and sentenced to a six-year prison term for leading a network of underground evangelical house churches, according to Christian Today.
Miles Windson writes of the pastor’s ordeal in a recent Wall Street Journal article. Windson notes he is “impressed” with Fathi strength during his imprisonment in Tehran’s Evin prison.
“Although the beauty of Christmas or the signs of Christmas cannot be found in this prison,” the pastor writes, “with the ears of faith I can hear the everlasting and beautiful truth that: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.’”
Born into a Muslim family in Iran, Fathi became a Christian at age 17, following his brother's conversion. Fathi, 34, is married with two young children, Rosanna and Bardia.
Publication date: December 30, 2014