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VICTORY OVER ECCLESIASTICAL FORCES- The fourth year of this Ten-Year Crusade, endowed with such tremendous potentialities, has witnessed, in the Cradle of the Faith, and in direct consequence of the strenuous, the concerted and persistent efforts exerted by the champion-builders of this embryonic World Order, holding aloft the standard of an unconquerable Faith in the American and European continents, and reinforced by the voice of men of eminence in both the East and the West, and, particularly, by responsible officials, occupying high positions in various agencies of the United Nations, a victory over the ecclesiastical forces leagued against it and a fanatical population determined to extirpate it root and branch - a victory which must rank as one of the most striking among those won in the Formative Age of the Baha'i Dispensation. The numerous properties, serving for the most part, as the administrative headquarters of the Faith, and scattered throughout the provinces of that sorely tried land, outstanding among which is the House of the Bab in Shiraz - the holiest spot in that country, the scene of the birth of His Revelation, and the ordained Center of Pilgrimage - have, pursuant to orders issued by the central authorities in Tihran, been returned to their owners, despite the protests of a relentless and powerful clergy, the agitation of a hostile population, and the importunate demands made by prominent members of the Legislature to outlaw and disendow the Faith, confiscate its literature, raze to the ground its principal edifices, deport its chief supporters, and root it out of the provinces. A firm and categorical assurance has, moreover, been given by the Chief Magistrate and the head of his Cabinet to the national representatives of the Persian Baha'i Community that their national administrative headquarters in Tihran, together with all its furnishings, books and documents, which have thus far been kept intact in that edifice, will be restored.
(104:1)
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