TEHRAN – Tehran Municipality inaugurated on Saturday a new metro station called Maryam-e Moqaddas — Persian for Holy Virgin Mary, showcasing the peaceful coexistence among religions in the country.

The building features Christian-themed art and architecture and is located near Saint Sarkis Armenian Cathedral, the main hub for the city’s Armenian Christian community.

The Saint Mary subway station, carved underground with light, arches, and silence, blends the elegance of church architecture with the calming geometry of Iranian design, Tehran’s Mayor Alireza Zakani wrote in a post on X.

This station recalls the divine woman who awakened the world through her purity and by nurturing a great prophet. The purpose of such naming of this station is to honor Saint Mary and to showcase the coexistence of Divine religions in Tehran, he added.

As the shots of the station went viral, social media users from different countries described the photos as amazing. A religious Christian has posted the photos of the station, saying that the Tehran metro station, Maryam-e Moqaddas, is just wonderful. Sharing images of the station, a Russian user has asked his followers ‘guess in which European city this metro station has opened? Guessed?  A new metro station named Saint Mary, adorned with Christian symbols, has opened in Tehran.’

A user named Richard, @ricwe123, wrote all the time, the Western mainstream media is telling us how Iranian is some fanatic wasteland, where religion other than Islam can’t breathe. Then Tehran opens a “Holy Virgin Mary” metro station, covered in Christian symbols, and the whole story falls apart. Turns out, what we have been fed is not the truth; it’s propaganda, to push a certain narrative.

Jackson Hinkle, @jaksonhinklle, wrote: ‘Breaking: Tehran Municipality opens the new “Holy Virgin Mary” metro station’.

Roberto, @UniqueMangolia, posted photos and said you will never see such beauty and such a clean Metro station in the civilized West (flourishing garden as Borrell once said). Neither in Europe nor in the United States. This is an Iranian metro station. A new Holy Virgin Mary metro station in Tehran, decorated with Christian symbols.

Another social media user,  named @Orthodoxe, noted that Love for God in Iran is so great that Maryam, Most Holy Mother of Christ, will have her in a metro station in Tehran, with motifs inspired by Armenian art. Something no ‘post-Christian’ western country would tolerate.

Hala Jaber, @HalaJaber, wrote that Tehran just inaugurated the Holy Virgin Mary metro station, featuring Christian murals near St. Sarkis Armenian Cathedral, serving Iran’s 100,000-strong Armenian Christian community.

A symbolic nod to coexistence: Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are constitutionally protected and live peacefully in Iran, with parliamentary seats reserved for each.

Even the metro now carries that message. While the West lectures about tolerance, Tehran quietly practices it, even underground.

MT