(Today’s Prayer) Iran Forms Three-Member Leadership Council… Temporarily Acting as Supreme Leader

Following the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a three-member interim leadership council will be formed in accordance with the constitution, the state-run IRNA news agency reported on the 1st (local time).

IRNA reported that in accordance with Article 111 of the constitution, which stipulates the acting powers of the Supreme Leader in the event of his death, the three members of the leadership council, including President Masoud Pezekian, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezei, and an Islamic law expert from the Guardian Council, will act as the Supreme Leader's duties and powers during the transitional period.

Ayatollah Khamenei's closest confidant and advisor, former First Vice President Mohammad Mohber, also confirmed this to the outlet.

According to the constitution, the Iranian constitutional body's Experts Council must elect the next Supreme Leader as soon as possible.

Iran experts predict that former Vice President Mohver, who was even called "Khamenei's right-hand man," and Ali Larijani, Secretary General of the Supreme National Security Council, who currently oversees military and security affairs, will hold real power in a wartime situation, rather than the institutionally constituted Interim Leadership Council.

The Iranian government officially confirmed the deaths of Mohammad Fakhpour, Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ( IRGC ), and Ali Shamkhani, Ayatollah Khamenei's senior security adviser, in US and Israeli airstrikes the previous day.

Source: Naver News

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Heavenly Father, we hear news that the top leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its commander-in-chief and Ayatollah Khamenei's chief security advisor, have been killed in airstrikes by the United States and Israel. We also lift up Iran before You, as the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leads to the formation of a temporary leadership council and the process of selecting the next leader.

Lord, we pray You will powerfully intervene in the process of selecting the interim leaders and the next Supreme Leader. May You establish a leader in Iran who does not merely follow Islamic tradition or the logic of power, but who truly fears God and genuinely loves the people. May You put an end to armed conflict or chaos exploiting the power vacuum. Come among the leaders of Iran so that true stability may be established in the land and the spiritual authority of God's kingdom may be established.

By human strength alone, true peace cannot be achieved. But through Jesus Christ alone, may the true comfort and peace given by God come upon Iran. Even amidst the turmoil in Iran's political situation caused by the deaths of its leadership and airstrikes, may the Iranian church and saints stand firm upon the rock of faith. Guide them to continue proclaiming the gospel to the very end, thereby establishing God's kingdom in the land of Iran.

Lord, in this time of restructuring Iran's leadership system, raise up the global church and saints to pray for Iran and the peoples of the Middle East. May the Gospel be planted in the vacuum left by the shaking of Islam's power, and may a movement arise where the Iranian people overcome the fear of war and persecution to receive Jesus Christ, the true Prince of Peace. Through the prayers of the global church, may the eternal rule of God's kingdom prevail over the power of worldly armies and reign throughout the land of Iran.

Thus, in the last days, may the yoke of Islam within Iran be broken and restored, and may the Iranian people rise as a channel for the gospel! May they become a holy nation of priests, governing Iran and all the Middle East with God's justice and order!