It is my fervent hope that those believers who have retained their faith in the indestructibility of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and in the sacredness and immutability of the Will and Testament of’Abdu’l-Bahá and hence the immortality of the divinely-conceived institutions delineated therein will, as they study the documentation available on this site, discover and realize the following:


  • That Shoghi Effendi faithfully appointed his successor "in his own life-time"as required under the terms of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá but he had to make this appointment at the time, for good reason, in such a veiled manner that it would be obscured from the believers.


  • That the identity of Shoghi Effendi’s appointed successor, tragically enough, remained veiled from the believers following the passing of Shoghi Effendi due to erroneous preconceived ideas and interpretations concerning the manner in which he would appoint his successor.


  • That Shoghi Effendi issued the one and only Proclamation of his ministry on 9 January 1951 constituting the embryonic Universal House of Justice as "this first embryonic International Institution" and stating that history will acclaim it as "the greatest event shedding lustre upon the second epoch of the Formative Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation"


  • That notwithstanding the superlative terms in which he had hailed the formation of the embryonic Universal House of Justice and the projected plans for its development, as announced in this same Proclamation, this "Nascent Institution" was never permitted, following the passing of Shoghi Effendi, to exercise its jurisdiction over the then "nine vigorously functioning national administrative institutions" cited by him and was illicitly replaced by a headless (i.e. sans-Guardian) body in 1963.


  • That the the believers, following the passing of Shoghi Effendi, failed to perceive the momentous significance that attached to and the implications to be found in Shoghi Effendi’s appointment of the President of the embryonic Universal House of Justice, temporarily titled in its first stage of development as the International Bahá’í Council as Presidency of the Universal House of Justice and Guardianship are synonymous terms.


  • That Shoghi Effendi had purposely retained the International Bahá’í Council as an inactively functioning body during the remaining years of his ministry so that he could use it as the instrument for the appointment of his successor.


  • That only as a result of the Proclamation of the second Guardian of the Faith issued at Ridván 1960 and the clear explanations that he provided did a few of the believers who had retained an unwavering faith in the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh rejoice in the news and understanding that came with this Proclamation and recognize as completely valid the manner in which he had been appointed the rightful appointed successor to Shoghi Effendi and realize why Shoghi Effendi had not used a testamentary document to appoint his successor, as had been erroneously anticipated by the Bahá’í world, as it would clearly have been contrary to the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.


  • That the Bahá’í Administrative Order has been blatantly corrupted by the self-appointed leaders of the Faith following the passing of Shoghi Effendi and their abandonment of the Guardianship as all of the divinely-conceived international institutions of the Bahá’í Administrative Order delineated in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (i.e. the Guardianship, the Hands of the Cause and a UHJ with the Guardian presiding as its "sacred head") have been replaced by man-made institutions completely outside the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá


  • That a sans-Guardian and therefore a headless, fallible and illicitly formed Universal House of Justice has been established by those who have abandoned the Guardianship of the Faith as the central single authority of the Faith in place of the Twin Institutions of the Administrative Order prescribed in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá where the Guardian is designated as "the Center of the Cause," the interpretive function is exercised exclusively by the Guardian of the Faith and the executive and legislative functions are clearly performed separately by these institutions.


  • That the second Guardian of the Faith has faithfully appointed his successor and the Guardianship continues to exist as a living Institution as delineated in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá – the Charter of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh and a Document identified by Shoghi Effendi as nothing less than a part of the explicit Holy Text – with the assurance that the highest institutions of the Bahá’í Administrative Order have been preserved intact and uncorrupted in their divinely-conceived perfection and glory for both the believers of this day and for future generations of Bahá’ís in the ages to come of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh.




    Joel Bray Marangella
    Third Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith

    28 August 1998