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==Under the hereditary Guardianship== ==Under the hereditary Guardianship==
All those that profess belief in Mason Remey as the second Guardian did not accept the ] established in 1963. Spataro, a follower of Remey's, later wrote that he believed the Institution of the Guardianship was set aside by the Hands of the Cause, and abrogated by the Universal House of Justice.<ref name="spataro25">{{harvnb|Spataro|2003|p=25}}</ref> Among the Bahá'ís who accepted Mason Remey as the second Guardian, several further divisions have occurred based on opinions of legitimacy and the proper succession of authority.<ref name="taherzadeh368-371" /> They began to split even before his death in 1974.<ref>{{cite book |author= Warburg, Margit |year= 2004 |title= Bahá'í, Studies in Contemporary Religion |publisher= Signature Books |isbn= 1560851694 |url= http://www.signaturebooks.com/excerpts/Baha'i.htm}}</ref> All those that profess belief in Mason Remey as the second Guardian did not accept the ] established in 1963. Spataro, a follower of Remey's, later wrote that he believed the Institution of the Guardianship was set aside by the Hands of the Cause, and abrogated by the Universal House of Justice.<ref name="spataro25">{{harvnb|Spataro|2003|p=25}}</ref>


Among the Bahá'ís who accepted Mason Remey as the second Guardian, several further divisions have occurred based on opinions of legitimacy and the proper succession of authority.<ref name="taherzadeh368-371" /> They began to split even before his death in 1974. Two leaders of these groups included Joel Marangella who formed the ] in 1969, and ] who organized the ] in the early 1970's. <ref>{{cite book |author= Warburg, Margit |year= 2004 |title= Bahá'í, Studies in Contemporary Religion |publisher= Signature Books |isbn= 1560851694 |url= http://www.signaturebooks.com/excerpts/Baha'i.htm}}</ref>
In 1962 Mason Remey asked his supporters in the United States to organize themselves and elect a "National Spiritual Assembly Under the Hereditary Guardianship" (NSAUHG). The Assembly was incorporated in New Mexico in 1964. In 1966 Remey asked the NSAUHG to dissolve, as well as the second International Bahá'í Council that he had appointed. Over the years following 1966 the followers of Mason Remey were not organize, until several of the individuals involved began forming their own groups based on different understandings of succession.<ref name="OBF findings of fact">, US District Court for Northern District Court of Illinois Eastern Division, Civil Action No. 64 C 1878: Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law by Respondents Joel B. Marangella, Franklin D. Schlatter, and Provisional National Bahá'í Council.</ref>

===Joel Marangella===
{{Unreferencedsection|date=September 2008}}
After his Proclamation in 1960, Remey went on to form a second International Bahá'í Council, and appointed Joel Marangella to be its President. In 1962 Remey gave Marangella a sealed envelope, with instructions to open it when the time was right. In 1965 Mason Remey called for the Council to become active, and Marangella opened the sealed letter, which was a hand-written note by Mason appointing Marangella as his successor. Shortly afterward Remey deactivated the Council. Once Marangella shared this appointment in 1969, he attracted his own following around himself while Remey was still alive called the Orthodox Bahá'í Faith.

===Donald Harvey===
On May 23, 1967, Remey appointed Donald Harvey to be the third Guardian upon his death, and this appointment was made contrary to and in conflict with Joel B. Marangella's claim to the Guardianship.<ref>US District Court for Northern District Court of Illinois Eastern Division, Civil Action No. 64 C 1878: Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law by Respondents Joel B. Marangella, Franklin D. Schlatter, and Provisional National Bahá'í Council. Page 7 #.57 </ref> Those who followed Donald Harvey accepted his appointed successor Jacques Shogomonian who now claims to be the Fourth Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith under the group called "Bahá'ís Loyal to the Fourth Guardian".

===Pepe Remey===
{{Unreferencedsection|date=September 2008}}
In Florence, Italy, 1964, Remey adopted an Italian Bahá'í named Joseph Pepe who he had known since the 1950s. ] formed his own group of followers in ] and put forward Pepe as the third Guardian since neither of Mason's other two appointees were sons.

Pepe never accepted being the Guardian, and Jensen went on to hint that ], a prominent follower of Jensen, might be the next Guardian. Jensen appointed members to his own ], and after both Pepe and Jensen had passed away, Neal Chase announced that he was the fourth Guardian, after Pepe. Chase's claim created a further division among the group that followed Jensen.

===Rex King===
Another follower of Remey, Rex King, claimed that what Remey had actually been was "a regent Guardian" for the office of Guardian which was in fact in occultation. King further asserted that he himself "was in actuality the Second Regent....". Following his death in 1977, according to terms of his Will, the office passed to a Council of Regents, consisting of his sons Theodore, Eugene, and Thomas, and his daughter-in-law, Ruth Lopez-King. At that time they reorganized as the Tarbiyat Bahá'í Community. They appear to be restricted to a single group in ]. <ref>Tarbiyat Position Paper . Retrieved September 6, 2008</ref>


==Death== ==Death==

Revision as of 14:45, 28 December 2008

File:Remey1.jpg
Charles Mason Remey

Charles Mason Remey (May 15 1874 - February 4 1974) was a prominent and controversial American Bahá'í who was appointed in 1951 a Hand of the Cause, and president of the International Bahá'í Council. He was the architect for the Bahá'í Houses of Worship in Uganda and Australia, and Shoghi Effendi approved his design of the unbuilt House of Worship in Haifa, Israel.

When Shoghi Effendi died in 1957, he died without explicitly appointing a successor Guardian, and Remey was among the nine Hands of the Cause elected as an interim authority until the election of the first Universal House of Justice in 1963. However, in 1960 Remey declared himself to be the successor of Shoghi Effendi and expected the allegiance of the world's Bahá'ís. The vast majority of the Bahá'ís did not accept his claim, and those who followed him were declared to be covenant-breakers by the Hands of the Cause, and are shunned by the Bahá'í majority. Remey himself declared that being the Guardian gave him the exclusive right to declare who was or wasn't a covenant-breaker, and that those who opposed him and followed the Hands of the Cause were covenant-breakers. Remey's claim resulted in the largest current schism of the Bahá'í Faith, with a few groups still holding the belief that Remey was the successor of Shoghi Effendi. Verifiable references for all his successor groups' current membership are not available, while various dated ones place some of the group's memberships at less than a hundred each in two of the surviving groups.

Early life

Born in Burlington, Iowa, on May 15 1874, Mason was the eldest son of Rear Admiral George Collier Remey and Mary Josephine Mason Remey, the daughter of Charles Mason, the first Chief Justice of Iowa. Remey’s parents raised him in the Episcopal Church. Remey trained as an architect at Cornell University (1893-1896) and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France (1896-1903) where he first learned of the Baha'i Faith..

As a Bahá'í

With a background in architecture, Remey was asked to design the Australian and Ugandan Bahá'í House of Worship which still stand today and are the mother temples for Australasia and Africa respectively. Upon the request of Shoghi Effendi, he also provided designs for a Bahá'í House of Worship in Tehran, for Haifa, and the Shrine of `Abdu'l-Bahá, however only the Haifa temple was approved before the death of Shoghi Effendi, and none have so far been built.

Remey traveled extensively to promote the Bahá'í Faith during the ministry of `Abdu'l-Bahá. Shoghi Effendi recorded that Remey and his Bahá'í companion, Howard Struven, were the first Bahá'ís to circle the globe teaching the religion. Remey visited `Abdu'l-Bahá in the Holy Land several times and received numerous letters from him. “Star of the West”, a Bahá'í periodical, published many of these letters during the years 1913-1922. `Abdu'l-Bahá’s had a high regard for Remey, as evident in several letters.

A prolific writer, Remey wrote numerous published and personal articles promoting the Bahá'í Faith, including `Abdu'l-Bahá – The Center of the Covenant and the five volume A Comprehensive History of the Bahá'í Movement (1927), The Bahá'í Revelation and Reconstruction (1919), Constructive Principles of The Bahá'í Movement (1917), and The Bahá'í Movement: A Series of Nineteen Papers (1912) are a few of the titles of the many works Remey produced while `Abdu'l-Bahá was still alive. Remey's life was recorded in his diaries, and in 1940 he provided copies and selected writings to several public libraries. Included in most of the collections were the letters `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote to him.

According to Juliet Thompson's diary, `Abdu'l-Bahá suggested that she marry Remey, and in 1909 asked her how she felt about it. They never married.

Under Shoghi Effendi

Remey lived for some time in Washington, D.C., in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950 Remey moved his residence from Washington, D.C., to Haifa, Israel, at the request of Shoghi Effendi. In January 1951, Shoghi Effendi issued a proclamation announcing the formation of the International Bahá'í Council (IBC), representing the first international Bahá'í body. The council was intended to be a precursor to the Universal House of Justice, "the supreme legislative body of the future Bahá’í Commonwealth". Remey was appointed president of the council in March, with Amelia Collins as vice-president, then in December of 1951 Remey was appointed a Hand of the Cause.

Aftermath of Shoghi Effendi's passing

Main article: Bahá'í divisions

When Shoghi Effendi died in 1957, Remey and the other Hands of the Cause met in a private Conclave at Bahjí in Haifa, and determined that he hadn't appointed a successor. They decided that the situation of the Guardian having died without being able to appoint a successor was a situation not dealt with in the texts that define the Bahá'í administration, and that it would need to be reviewed and adjudicated upon by the Universal House of Justice, which hadn't been elected yet. Remey signed a unanimous declaration of the Hands that Shoghi Effendi had died "without having appointed his successor".

Three years later, in 1960, Remey made a written announcement that his appointment as president of the international council represented an appointment by Shoghi Effendi as Guardian, because the appointed council was a precursor to the elected Universal House of Justice, which has the Guardian as its president.

He also attempted to usurp the control of the Faith which the Hands had themselves assumed at the passing of Shoghi Effendi stating:

"It is from and through the Guardianship that infallibility is vested and that the Hands of the Faith receive their orders...I now command the Hands of the Faith to stop all of their preparations for 1963, and furthermore I command all believers both as individual Bahá'ís and as assemblies of Bahá'ís to immediately cease cooperating with and giving support to this fallacious program for 1963." (Remey, 1960 p.6-7)

The vast majority of Bahá'ís rejected his claim, with the noted exception of the French National Spiritual Assembly, led by Joel Marangella, who elected to support Remey and was consequently disbanded by the Hands. The remaining 26 Hands of the Cause unanimously expelled him from the community.

Under the hereditary Guardianship

All those that profess belief in Mason Remey as the second Guardian did not accept the Universal House of Justice established in 1963. Spataro, a follower of Remey's, later wrote that he believed the Institution of the Guardianship was set aside by the Hands of the Cause, and abrogated by the Universal House of Justice.

Among the Bahá'ís who accepted Mason Remey as the second Guardian, several further divisions have occurred based on opinions of legitimacy and the proper succession of authority. They began to split even before his death in 1974. Two leaders of these groups included Joel Marangella who formed the Orthodox Baha'i Faith in 1969, and Leland Jensen who organized the Baha'is Under the Provisions of the Covenant in the early 1970's.

Death

In April 1974, Mason Remey died at the age of 99.. The funeral was organized by his adopted son Joseph Pepe, with the assistance of the American consulate in Florence. According to Pepe, because of the issues surrounding his father at the time of his death it had been decided to leave the tomb unmarked. He was buried at a location within the prescribed one-hour's distance from the place of death. Baha'i prayers were read as his coffin was interred at a temporary grave. Later the body was moved to its permanent grave in Florence, Italy, with a monument and inscription erected at the site.

Notes

  1. ^ Effendi 1971, pp. 18–20
  2. ^ Effendi 1971, pp. 8–9
  3. ^ Smith, P. (1999). A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications. p. 292. ISBN 1851681841.
  4. ^ Rabbani 1992, pp. 28–30
  5. Remey 1960, p. 8
  6. Stone 2000, pp. 271
  7. Momen 1988, p. g.2
  8. John Hopkins University Library Special Collections. See 'Biographical Note' . Retrieved September 7, 2008.
  9. Remey, 1960 p. 2
  10. Spataro,2003 pg 31
  11. Effendi 1944, p. 261
  12. A collection of letters written by `Abdu'l-Bahá to Charles Mason Remey that appeared in the STAR OF THE WEST.
  13. Summary and details of the collection of Remey's diaries at John Hopkins University Library. . Retrieved September 6th, 2008
  14. Thompson 1983, pp. 69–71
  15. Effendi 1971, p. 149
  16. ^ Taherzadeh 2000, pp. 368–371
  17. Unanimous Proclamation of the 27 Hands of the Cause of God
  18. Remey 1960, p. 5
  19. Rabbani 1992, p. 197
  20. Spataro 2003, p. 25
  21. Warburg, Margit (2004). Bahá'í, Studies in Contemporary Religion. Signature Books. ISBN 1560851694.
  22. Spataro, 2003 p. 31

References

  • Stone, Jon R. (ed) (2000), Expecting Armageddon, Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy, New York: Routledge, pp. 269–282, ISBN 0-415-92331-x {{citation}}: |first= has generic name (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Spataro, Francis C. (2003), Charles Mason Remey and the Bahá'í Faith, Queens, NY 11427-2116.: Tover Publications, ISBN 0-9671656-3-6{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  • Taherzadeh, Adib (2000), The Child of the Covenant, Oxford, UK: George Ronald, ISBN 0853984395

External links

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