Originally published in The Christian Post
Christian congregations are expanding in some of the world’s most hostile countries even as an estimated 380 million believers face persecution each year for their faith, according to a report from the US-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern.
ICC’s report, Global Persecution Index 2026, found that the Church is adding members in places where worship can bring arrest, imprisonment or death, pointing to underground and digital networks that let believers gather outside the reach of the state.
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“Despite mounting repression, Christianity continues to grow in unexpected places,” ICC researchers wrote.
Iran is the most extreme case, according to the report, which calls the country’s house church movement among the quickest to expand anywhere, sustained by hidden networks and online evangelism even as converts from Islam are arrested, jailed and, in some cases, executed under blasphemy and national-security statutes.
The report quotes anonymous experts who rank Iran’s Christian population as “one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world”.
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“Though still a tiny part of the population, Iranian Christians are proving resilient to the government pressure that surrounds them every day,” the report states.
In China, believers gather in private residences and through encrypted online meetings even under constant state monitoring.
However, such expansion is happening alongside a rise in religious nationalism, a leading force behind shrinking freedom of belief, ICC stresses.
In India, militant Hindu groups tied to the governing Bharatiya Janata Party have attacked Christian and Muslim minorities, and several state governments have passed laws restricting conversion.
Anti-conversion measures are now enforced in 13 of India’s 28 states, the report notes, adding that courts haven’t convicted a Christian of forcing anyone to convert but they are often “harassed and jailed on the mere suspicion of wrongdoing”.
In the year ending in July 2025, the group counted more than 1100 Christians in India driven from their homes and 276 recorded cases of physical or mental abuse.
“Yet amid repression, faith continues to grow,” researchers wrote. “Reports from underground networks in India and Pakistan indicate steady increases in conversions and discipleship. Believers gather in private homes, remote villages, and online fellowships. Their quiet courage affirms that the flame of faith cannot be extinguished, even in the crucible of persecution.”
In North Korea, small underground church networks operate “entirely in darkness”, the report notes, but they continue to hold services, conduct radio broadcasts and smuggle in materials.
“North Korea remains among the hardest persecutors of Christians and religious life in the world,” the report reads. “The Kim regime operates a zero-tolerance policy against any belief system outside state ideology, viewing Christianity not as a faith but as a dangerous external subversion.”
“Nonetheless, the clandestine church persists.”
Africa has emerged as the world’s leading continent of terrorism. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, close to half of all terror-related deaths now happen in Africa.
Armed movements such as Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province and al-Shabab operate through Nigeria, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Mozambique.
ICC counted more than 500 Christians killed and nearly 500 attacks on churches in Nigeria in the year ending in July 2025.
On October 31 2025, the US government named Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, a designation the State Department reserves for governments it finds responsible for severe violations of religious freedom.
Even under these conditions, the report said, congregations rebuild burned churches and keep worshiping.
The report recorded comparable pressure in Latin America, where Nicaragua’s government has imprisoned priests, exiled bishops and closed church-run universities, and where authorities in Cuba decide which congregations may operate legally.
The United Kingdom-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide logged 1 898 government actions against religious groups in Cuba during 2024, the report notes.
Authorities in Eritrea hold Christians in shipping containers and secret prisons, according to the report, which said at least eight believers there have been detained for periods ranging from 18 to 21 years for practicing their faith.
ICC tracks 22 countries in the index, and 13 of them carry the Country of Particular Concern label.
The group’s figures on killings come from a violent-incidents database it maintains with the International Institute for Religious Freedom, which recorded, for the year ending in July 2025, nearly 400 killings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 167 in Russia, 38 in Myanmar, 14 in Pakistan, 13 in Indonesia, 12 in Somalia and three in Turkey. The group cautions that the totals capture only a fraction of the persecution it has documented.
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