The Western Asian nation of 85.9 million (map) is 99% Muslim.

“Young people do not want to get married because the costs are too high. And even those few couples who do marry, do not have children,” said Archbishop Thomas Meram of Urmia. In his archeparchy, there were “three marriages, four baptisms, and 30 funerals” over the course of a year, and “here the situation is better than in other parts, such as Tehran, where the cost of living is much higher.”