Throughout Germany, the pews of churches like theirs are filled increasingly by asylum-seekers. Though two umbrella church organizations told me that they couldn\u2019t provide exact statistics or comment on the nationality of the asylum-seekers attending church, Christoph Heil, a spokesman for the Protestant Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia\u201d\u201dwhich includes 1,300 parishes\u201d\u201dconfirmed the pattern. \u201cNormally we don\u2019t count the number of asylum-seekers who are baptized because we don\u2019t differentiate between who is an asylum-seeker and who isn\u2019t, but [asylum-seekers asking to be baptized] appears to be a new trend,\u201d\u009d he said.<\/p>\n
Muslim converts to Christianity that I spoke to in Germany cited the redemptive power of Jesus\u2019s story, and disillusionment with Islam. It\u2019s also worth noting the more earthly forces potentially at work: Germany does not grant refugee status to Iranians as easily as it does Syrians and Iraqis. Around 27,000 Iranians applied for asylum in the EU in 2015, with Germany hosting the overwhelming majority; according to Germany\u2019s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 60 percent of Iranian requests for asylum received positive answers that year. Iranians seeking refugee status must prove that if they are sent home, they stand the risk of being persecuted for their beliefs. In Iran, that often means Christian converts.<\/p>\n