The Right Reverend Hassan Barnaba Dehqani-Tafti (May 14, 1920 – April 29, 2008) was the Anglican Bishop of Iran from 1961 until his retirement in 1990. [1] Dehqani-Tafti was the first ethnic Persian to become a Christian bishop of Iran since the 7th century and the Islamic conquest of Persia.[1] (There had been ethnic Armenian and Assyrian bishops in Iran, but no ethnic Persian bishops up until the 20th century.)[1] However, Dehqani-Tafti spent the last ten years of his episcopate in exile after the Iranian Revolution and an assassination attempt in October 1979, in which his wife, Margaret, was wounded.[1][2] In May 1980, Dehqani-Tafti's 24-year-old son, Bahram, was murdered by Iranian government agents.[1]
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Hassan Barnaba Dehqani-Tafti was born in the small village of Taft, which is located near the city of Yazd, in central Iran.[1] His parents, who were both Muslims, were poor.[1] Dehqani-Tafti attended Stuart Memorial College in Isfahan, before moving on to Tehran University where he was trained to become a teacher.[1] He converted to Christianity in Isfahan in 1938 and was soon seen a leader of the growing Christian youth group in the city.[1]
He served as an officer in the Iranian Imperial Army from 1943 until 1945.[1] His knowledge of English led him to become an interpreter for British officials in the Middle East. Following the end of World War II, Dehqani-Tafti worked under English Anglican bishop William Thompson as a layman in the Diocese of Iran for two years.[1]
Dehqani-Tafti decided to become an Anglican priest. He left Iran in 1947 to attend Ridley Hall, Cambridge, a theological college, to prepare for his ordination.[1] After his ordination he returned to Iran and became pastor of St Luke's Anglican Church in Isfahan.[1] He spent ten years at the Isfahan parish and also did some missionary work within Iran. He briefly became pastor of St Paul's Anglican Church in the capital city, Tehran.[1]
However, Dehqani-Tafti did not stay long at St. Paul's. He was appointed the Anglican Bishop of Iran to succeed Bishop William Thompson. (Dehqani-Tafti had married Thompson's daughter in an English-Iranian wedding nine years before his ascension as bishop).[1] Dehqani-Tafti became the first ethnic Iranian Christian bishop of Iran since the 7th Century.[1]
As bishop, he concentrated on the growth of the Anglican education system and schools in Iran. He established Iranian secondary schools for girls and boarding schools for boys.[1]