[2] Fabritius participated in a number of military campaigns under the Russian banner until he was captured while fighting Stenka Razin and his Cossack forces.

After spending three months in captivity in Astrakhan, enslaved by Tatars, he regained his freedom and moved to the Safavid Empire with other Dutch refugees.

[2] When Fabritius arrived in Isfahan (the Safavid capital) he turned down a position in the Dutch East India Company, and moved back to Russia in 1672.

[2] Fabritius' diplomatic career began in the late 1670s, and his first mission (to Iran) was to facilitate the opening of a transit route to Europe via Russia.

Since Fabritius apparently paid for the mission with his own money, an arrangement had probably been made with the Armenian merchants of Safavid Iran or those in the Russian tsardom.

[2] The discussion during Fabritius' private audience with the Safavid king and the writings of Engelbert Kaempfer, secretary to the mission, present different versions of Charles XI's readiness to send troops to assist Iran in its struggle against the Ottomans.

[2][3] The Safavid king eventually declined the invitation to join the Holy League, based upon his "pacifist inclination" and a realistic assessment of his army's strength compared with the Ottomans'.

[2] Over the next three years Fabritius was received eleven times by the Safavid monarch, who assured him that he would oblige the Swedish king in all his wishes and proposals except "to resume hostilities with the Ottomans".

Fabritius also asked the Safavid king, Sultan Husayn (r. 1694–1722), to request free transit rights for Swedish merchants travelling to and from Sweden from Russian Tsar Ivan V (r.