The Qajar period in Iran was a watershed in terms of intellectuals’ conceptions of the modern state, secularism, constitutionalism and the relationship of state and society. The gradual extension of state protection for religious minorities, developing notions of citizenship, and a newfound emphasis on the potential of pre-Islamic Iran as a template for a modern state, combined to fundamentally alter the status of Zoroastrians in Iran. State actions and nationalists’ focus on the pre-Islamic period accompanied the Zoroastrian community’s own burgeoning educational, institutional and religious reforms. Within one generation the Zoroastrian community went from living in rural isolation in the villages surrounding Yazd and Kerman to emerging as a prosperous, increasingly respected, and increasingly powerful minority in the capital. Kay Khosrow Shahrokh’s lifetime spanned these transformations. He was influenced by, participated in, and instigated many of the changes in Zoroastrian community organization and national political participation, as well as educational and religious reform. He was a man of his age. Shahrokh’s interest in religion went beyond that of championing minority legal rights against Islamic restrictions and local prejudices. In his memoirs he describes himself as a religious seeker. In his memoirs, Shahrokh testifies to an almost Deist conception of religion, one based firmly on the centrality of ethics and morality. Shahrokh accumulated the tools of religious inquiry, including English and Arabic, and took seriously his quest for understanding religion in a comparative framework. In addition to his study of Christianity, he read the Quran and learned the entire Avesta by heart. His time in Bombay and his important government positions in Tehran that sometimes required travel abroad put him in intimate contact with leading currents of religious thought. He was conversant with Zoroastrian religious debates in India, as well as with the larger field of religious studies in the West. Shahrokh understood modern religion to be defined by the following four characteristics: monotheism; the individual’s spiritual relationship with God; a de-emphasis on ritual and a corresponding re-emphasis on ethical behavior in society. This paper explores Shahrokh’s essays on religion, underlining in particular his conception of modern religion and its relationship to his understanding of the role of the citizen in the modern state.