Seven small children are gathered around a table at the Zoroastrian temple in Pomona, NY, with Avan Patel at the head. Patel, the daughter of the temple priest, has taught four to six year-olds about the Zoroastrian faith for seven years. The children in her class are preparing for their eventual Navjote, the ceremony in which they will be officially welcomed to the Zoroastrian faith.

“Where have we seen fire before?” Patel asks them. They shout out their answers.

“In the fireplace!”

“On a building!”

“Yes, and in the temple. Now, we must remember, we can pray near the fire but not too close to it,” she says.

“Yes, because it can make you dead.”

“Ok, now, God created seven special angels to be special protectors for each of his seven creations: sky, water, earth, food, animals, humans, and fire. Ahura Mazda has a team—it’s like a basketball team—they work together. They are the Amesha Spentas.

“One of them looks after the. . . “ Patel points upwards

“Sky!” the children say in tandem.

“One looks after the. . . “ Patel points down.

“Earth!”

“Good! One looks after the. . . “ Patel points at herself, then at each of the children sitting around the table.

“People!”

These children represent the newest members of a dying faith. Zoroastrianism is disappearing from the globe, in part because of a vehement stance against proselytizing and the rules surrounding the offspring of Zoroastrians and their non-Zoroastrian spouses. Here, at the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York’s center, at 106 Pomona Road in Suffern, the rules are relaxed. Children of inter-marriages are more than welcome here, where in India, only the children of a Zoroastrian father would be welcome in the temple and be allowed to participate in the Navjote.

It is widely accepted that the non-conversion doctrine in Zoroastrianism has only been in place since the Zoroastrians fled Persia for India, where they are known as Parsis. Once in India, the Hindu king offered them refuge from persecution under the stipulation that they wouldn’t proselytize. Some American Zoroastrians argue that the stance on conversion is not inherent to the religion but was only added later and they ask why Parsis continue to be so vigilant about it now when their faith is threatened with extinction.

Many Zoroastrians in America today are open-minded and welcoming of those of every faith. Some members of the community, even the temple’s board members, have married outside the faith, yet their children and spouses are welcomed to classes and prayers at the temple.

In India, it is not so open, and members of the New York congregation universally said that Parsis in India are much more orthodox in their interpretation of the rules surrounding who is really considered Zoroastrian, despite concerns over the dwindling population.

“They will say they are not interested in quantity, they are interested in quality,” Lovji Cama said about his orthodox counterparts in India. “But the quality of zero is zero.”

But today, in this small room, these young children have little sense of the world they are being trained to enter. They don’t even know the meaning of the prayers they are being taught. They will learn the meaning behind the sounds later.

One young student already seems exhausted. “Do we have to do this,” Sarosh, 6 1/2 says with exasperation when Patel announces they will be playing a game. Then, with a decidedly adult sigh, “I’ve been in this class for years. I’m really bored.”