| Covenant-Breaker |
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| One who publicly denies the line of succession (i.e. Bahá'u'lláh, ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, the Universal House of Justice) or who rebels against the Centre of the Covenant and actively works to undermine the Covenant. In the time of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá the arch-breaker of the Covenant was His half-brother MIrzá Muḥammad-‘Alí. |
| The decision to expel someone from the community as a Covenant-breaker is taken, at present†, by the Hands of the Cause with the approval of the Universal House of Justice. It is a very rare occurrence. |
| It is forbidden for Bahá'ís to associate with Covenant-breakers. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá explains the reason for this: ‘. . . just as the bodily diseases like consumption . . . are contagious, likewise the spiritual diseases are also infectious. If a consumptive should associate with a thousand safe and healthy persons, the safety and health of these thousand persons would not affect the consumptive and would not cure him of his consumption. But when this consumptive associates with those thousand souls, in a short time the disease of consumption will infect a number of those healthy persons.'26 However, Bahá'ís are to pray for Covenant-breakers, as ‘these souls are not lost forever'.27 |
| [BD 62] |
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| Note: Written in 1989. There are no longer any living Hands of the Cause of God. Now only the Universal House of Justice has the authority to determine if someone is a Covenant-Breaker. |
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