The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church fell on Sunday 1 November this year, marking thirty years since the observance began in 1996. Its roots go back to 1994, when Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr was killed in Iran after defending a pastor who faced a death sentence for apostasy.
Tribune.org cites the International Institute for Religious Freedom’s Violent Incidents Database, which recorded at least 4,652 Christians killed in 36 countries in 2025, along with 2,832 abductions and 3,527 people displaced inside their own countries. Free prayer materials are available from the International Day of Prayer website and The Voice of the Martyrs.
In the UK, the organisation Voice of Persecuted Christians is urging churches to set aside time in November under the theme “Light in the Darkest Places” (Christian Today). Its free resources include testimonies from Christians in Kenya, India and Ethiopia, prayer points, a Bible reading, a talk based on John 1:1-5 and a six-minute film about Ethiopia.
Photo: Ralff Nestor Nacor / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons
