Catholic Cardinal Welcomes Iran's New "Virgin Mary" Metro Station Honoring the Mother of Jesus

 Cardinal Dominique Joseph Mathieu, Latin Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan, welcomes the inauguration of a metro station in the Iran's capital Tehran dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Maryam-e Moghaddas).
Work has been completed on the Maryam-e Moghaddas metro station, located near the Armenian Church of Saint Sarkis. In addition to ornamental elements evoking Christian symbolism and connecting it to Muslim tradition, there will also be a 2.5-metre statue of the Virgin Mary. The Latin Archbishop hopes that everyone may recognise in her that “God comes to meet His creation – men and women from around the world, brothers and sisters of a common house”.

To AsiaNews the prelate writes: “If there is a wish to be made, it is that commuters, in a spirit of contemplation, may see, beneath the closed eyelids of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the bas-reliefs of the station and in the statue to be unveiled at the inauguration, a gaze filled with love”.
Through this “God comes to meet His creation – men and women from around the world, brothers and sisters of a common house, His witnesses by divine will.”
Tehran Metro is currently undergoing renovations. Iranian and international media have reported on the new metro station’s upcoming inauguration.
Minorities, including Christians, face critical challenges in the Islamic Republic.
Construction began around 2015 and has encountered numerous engineering challenges, given the dense urban fabric of that part of the capital.
The station reaches 34 metres below ground level, covering approximately 11,000 square metres of built area. Over 100,000 cubic metres of soil were removed during the project.

Located near the Armenian Church of Saint Sarkis in central Tehran, the Saint Mary (Maryam-e Moghaddas) station features large reliefs of Jesus and Mary.

"It was built," Mayor Alireza Zakani wrote in a recent post on X, "to honour Saint Mary and to demonstrate the coexistence of divine religions in Tehran.”
"The name of a station," explains the Latin Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan, "becomes a landmark, sparking curiosity, strengthening bonds, and fostering new encounters."

Cardinal Mathieu explained that the project was initially named after a young Iranian student, Nejatollahi, martyred by the previous regime during the student sit-in in 1979. In the first quarter of 2025, the municipal authorities decided to rename the station, while keeping the martyr’s name in parentheses, which means “God who saves.”

The station’s kiosk is located near the park, which already bears the name Saint Mary and hosts the Armenian cultural center. It faces the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral Church, Saint Sarkis, the only church in the capital open to all, outside of religious services.

The Cardinal notes, supporters will see it as an expression of gratitude towards the country’s largest ethnoreligious minority, the Armenians. They express their gratitude by offering, thanks to one of their benefactors, a 2.5-meter-high stone statue depicting the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus in her arm.

He says, If there is a wish to be made, it is that commuters, in a spirit of contemplation, may see, beneath the closed eyelids of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the bas-reliefs of the station and in the statue to be unveiled at the inauguration, a gaze filled with love, through which God comes to meet His creation – men and women from around the world, brothers and sisters of a common house, His witnesses by divine will.