Brother Edward 1950 – 2026
‘A great oak has fallen’
Perhaps the first impression most people had when they met Brother Edward was his warmth, humour and a voice that always asked how you were with genuine interest.
And then in conversation, there was a quality that marked him out: gentleness. This was not a gentleness that swayed in whatever direction the wind was blowing, this was a strong, purposeful gentleness, anchored in the convictions that Jesus Christ was the Lord and Saviour, the Bible was inspired Scripture, and people should be loved.
These convictions were easily sensed when he preached. There was authority, rooted in Brother Edward’s exceptional knowledge of the Scriptures. He knew the verses, he knew where the verses were, and he knew how to use them to speak to people’s hearts. From the pulpit he seemed very natural, almost as if he was talking spontaneously, but his sermons were in fact very well prepared. He always had written notes with him to develop a well thought through proposition from the Scriptures.
Brother Edward was certainly one of Iran’s church’s greatest preachers; but he was also one of her greatest pastors. He loved people. He gave them time. He gave clear advice. He had a special concern for marriage, mentoring couples through the engagement, the wedding and beyond. Such was his concern for married couples that he wrote one of the first books in Persian on the subject. It is still selling. He also wrote a book about pastoral work. It too is still selling. Brother Edward – who never went to university – did not just write out of his own experience. He was an avid reader, probably one of the best read pastors in Iran’s church.
As well as his preaching and pastoral work there was a keen understanding of the church, and church administration. For Brother Edward was a church man to his finger-tips. At the centre of the growth of the Assemblies of God Churches in Iran, Brother Edward learnt all about the role of committees and church meetings. Before he came to the UK it was perhaps Brother Edward, more than any other, who saw that the future of Christianity in Iran lay in the house churches. He saw the day was coming when the government would not allow ‘building’ churches to flourish, and so he shifted the whole focus to the homes. He offered supervision, first in Iran, and then from the UK. The movement has flourished.
When he later came to the UK this same commitment to sound protocol in the church was soon felt, and so it was he who was the main inspiration behind Ham Gaam, a grouping of Diaspora Churches. And later he was a great supporter of Iran’s first world-wide alliance of Christians.
If one had to choose one word to describe Brother Edward’s character, gentleness is a good one. For his ministry, the word should be courage. This was consistent. He showed courage during his first pastorate in the north of Iran when the church was threatened; he showed courage when his brother was brutally murdered in 1994 and he took over the leadership of the church; he showed courage when his first wife, Anahita, was tragically taken from him by cancer – he kept on serving. And he showed courage when he then fell in love with a non Armenian lady, Nazi, and married her despite much criticism. In Iran Brother Edward was constantly threatened by the authorities, but he refused to bow to their pressure to exclude Muslim background believers or to stop evangelism. His preparation for questioning was to pray and fast and enter the interrogation room filled with the Holy Spirit. On one occasion the officer showed that he had a gun. Brother Edward was not fazed. He had the Holy Spirit.
Ministry was busy, very; but Brother Edward was always the family man. Today our hearts grieve with Nazi and all his children and grand-children.
In Africa when a revered and much loved leader dies, people say, ‘A great oak has fallen’
Truly, for all Iran’s church, ‘A great oak has fallen’.
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