| The Bahá'í Faith has no clergy. ‘We have no priests,' Shoghi Effendi stated in a letter written on his behalf, ‘therefore the service once rendered by priests to their religions is the service every single Bahá'í is expected to render individually to his religion. He must be the one who enlightens new souls, confirms them, heals the wounded and weary upon the road of life, and gives them to quaff from the chalice of everlasting life . . . the knowledge of the Manifestation of God in His Day.'11 In His writings, Bahá'u'lláh forbids the monastic practices of asceticism and living in seclusion, bids priests to marry and prohibits the confession of sins. |
