Covenant-breaker - Resultant Groups

Resultant Groups

Most of the groups regarded by the larger group of Bahá'ís as Covenant-breakers originated in the claims of Charles Mason Remey to the Guardianship in 1960. The Will and Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá states that Guardians should be lineal descendants of Bahá'u'lláh, that each Guardian must select his successor during his lifetime, and that the nine Hands of the Cause of God permanently stationed in the holy land must approve the appointment by majority vote. Bahá'ís interpret lineal descendency to mean physical familial relation to Bahá'u'lláh, of which Mason Remey was not.

Almost all of Bahá'ís accepted the determination of the Hands of the Cause that upon the death of Shoghi Effendi, he died "without having appointed his successor". There was an absence of a valid descendant of Bahá'u'lláh who could qualify under the terms of `Abdu'l-Bahá's will. Later the Universal House of Justice, initially elected in 1963, made a ruling on the subject that it was not possible for another Guardian to be appointed.

In 1960 Remey, a Hand of the Cause himself, retracted his earlier position, and claimed to have been coerced. He claimed to be the successor to Shoghi Effendi. He and the small number of people who followed him were expelled from the Faith by the Hands of the Cause. Those close to Remey claimed that he went senile in old age, and by the time of his death he was largely abandoned, with his most prominent followers fighting amongst themselves for leadership.

The largest group of the remaining followers of Remey, members of the so called"Orthodox Bahá'í Faith", believe that legitimate authority passed from Shoghi Effendi to Mason Remey to Joel Marangella. They, therefore, regard the Universal House of Justice in Haifa, Israel to be illegitimate, and its members and followers to be Covenant-breakers.

The present descendants of expelled members of Bahá'u'lláh's family have not specifically been declared Covenant-breakers, though they mostly do not associate themselves with the Bahá'í religion. A small group of Bahá'ís in Northern New Mexico believe that these descendants are eligible for appointment to the Guardianship and are waiting for such a direct descendant of Bahá'u'lláh to arise as the rightful Guardian.

There is also a small group in Montana, originally formed around the personality of Leland Jensen, who claimed a status higher than that of the Guardian. His failed apocalyptic predictions and unsuccessful efforts to reestablish the Guardianship and the administration were apparent by his death in 1996. A dispute among Jensen's followers over the identity of the Guardian resulted in another division in 2001.