# Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Abdu'l-Bahá, Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland
> 
> Abdu'l-Bahá
> 
> Shoghi Effendi
> 
> Universal House of Justice, Research Department
> 
> , compiler
> 
> published in
> 
> Bahá'í Studies Review
> 
> 4:1
> 
> London: Association for Bahá'í Studies of English-Speaking Europe, 1994
> 
> Contents:
> 
> Introduction,
> by Julio Savi
> 
> 1.
> Germany
> 
> From the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
> 
> From Letters Written by Shoghi Effendi
> 
> From Letters Written on Behalf of Shoghi Effendi
> 
> 2.
> France
> 
> From the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
> 
> From Letters written on Behalf of Shoghi Effendi to individual believers
> 
> 3.
> Italy and Switzerland
> 
> From Letters Written by Shoghi Effendi
> 
> From a Letter Written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi
> 
> End Notes
> 
> Introduction
> 
> This compilation from the writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi
> discloses new perspectives on the future of European civilization, "a
> civilization to some of whose beneficent features the pen of Bahá'u'lláh has
> paid significant tribute."
> 
> (1)
> 
> No wonder that Europeans are so proud of their
> past. And yet their heritage may be considered both a glory and a burden.
> The glory comes from the remnants of its resplendent past, manifest in the
> beauty of artistic masterpieces, and in the profundity of the thoughts of
> great men, which are preserved in the pages of precious books as well as in
> the minds of their modern heirs, and realized in the best qualities of the
> European peoples. The burden comes from a culture, grown up within this
> heritage, which had made of Europe--as Shoghi Effendi wrote in
> 1947--the "darkest, most severely tested, spiritually depleted continent of
> the globe."
> 
> (2)
> 
> This culture, characterised as it was in its worst aspects in the
> 1940s by a "crass materialism...an aggressive racialism...a haughty
> intellectualism...a blind and militant nationalism...a narrow and intolerant
> ecclesiasticism,"
> 
> (3)
> 
> had transformed European peoples into "a materially
> highly advanced yet spiritually famished, much tormented, fear-ridden,
> hopelessly-sundered, heterogeneous conglomeration of races, nations, sects
> and classes."
> 
> (4)
> 
> It was in those years that the first Bahá'í pioneers, the "vanguard of the
> torch-bearers of a world-redeeming civilization"
> 
> (5)
> 
> arrived in Europe. Their
> arrival was "as unnoticed as the landing, two millenniums ago, of the
> apostles of Christ on the southern shores of the European continent,"
> 
> (6)
> 
> and
> yet it opened a new age in the history of all European nations. In this
> compilation, four nations are specifically mentioned: Germany, France,
> Switzerland and Italy.
> 
> Great importance is given to Germany. The "vast measure of celestial
> grace"
> 
> (7)
> 
> bestowed upon that community through the visits of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
> to a number of its cities and His correspondence with some of its most
> outstanding representatives may be viewed as both the cause of, and the
> divine response to, the spiritual receptivity of those "individuals...endued
> with perceptive eyes and attentive ears" who were "attracted to the
> principles of the oneness of mankind" and treated "all the peoples and
> kindreds of the earth in a spirit of concord and fellowship."
> 
> (8)
> 
> But in the
> dialectic of crisis and victory those blessings were followed by a long
> period of trials. The "narrow and brutal nationalism"
> 
> (9)
> 
> of the Nazi government disbanded the Bahá'í administrative institutions and reduced the
> Bahá'ís to silence for many years. And yet throughout these ordeals, the
> members of the "great-hearted, indefatigable, much admired German Bahá'í
> community"
> 
> (10)
> 
> displayed "virility" and "tenacity." And when "the shackles
> imposed" upon them were removed, they immediately put at the service of
> the Faith the best qualities "distinguishing the race to which they belong":
> "painstaking thoroughness, scientific exactitude and dispassionate
> criticism." 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi foresaw for them a "glorious
> future under the banner of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh": "to champion the
> Cause of God in Europe," to "spread out into Eastern and Southern Europe,
> and...into the heart of Northern Asia, as far as the China Sea," to give their
> contribution "in research and scholarship," to "lead all the nations and
> peoples of Europe spiritually."
> 
> Not less thrilling, although on a smaller scale, are the expectations from
> the other nations. France, which the Master visited thrice, was the seat of
> the earliest European Bahá'í community, founded at the end of last century
> through the efforts of May Maxwell. Many of the spiritual giants of the
> Bahá'í world--Laura Barney, Hippolite Dreyfus, Thomas Breakwell,
> Herbert Hopper, Agnes Alexander, and others--were transformed by the
> love of the Faith at that centre. France is described by the Master as a
> country endowed with "capacity," but in its cities "the power of nature is
> still triumphant over the power of religion." And yet He anticipates that as
> soon as its present love for material pleasure is turned into "a mighty
> passion in heavenly pleasure," and "souls profound in science and learning,
> of lofty aspirations, not bound by that which perisheth nor seeking the
> body's ease" will become attracted towards the love of Bahá'u'lláh, its
> cities will become "celebrated in every corner of the world and that clime
> [will] become a garden of delight."
> 
> The Italo-Swiss National Spiritual Assembly, elected in Florence in
> 1953, is described by Shoghi Effendi as "the fairest fruit of the great
> European enterprise launched in pursuance of the second Seven Year Plan
> formulated by the American Bahá'í community." Switzerland is presented
> as a "peace-loving, high-minded, firmly-knit...nation." The Italian people
> are described "by virtue of their qualities of mind and heart, ...as one of the
> most distinguished on the European continent." Shoghi Effendi admonishes
> that, since the peoples of these two countries are "intensely conservative by
> nature, steeped in tradition, bound, for the most part, by the ties of religious
> orthodoxy, sunk in materialism, and fully content with the standard they
> have achieved," the development of the Cause there will be "painfully slow,
> extremely arduous, and often highly discouraging." And yet he foresees for
> the Bahá'ís in those countries "a very great future" when, "at no distant
> date," they will be carried "upward from the shadowed valleys of obscurity
> to the sunny uplands of fame, prosperity and triumph."
> 
> Shoghi Effendi wrote in 1947 that "The hatreds that inflame, the
> rivalries that agitate, the controversies that confuse, the miseries that afflict,
> [European] races, nations and classes are bitter and of long standing."
> 
> (11)
> 
> It
> seems that differences among races, cultures, and nations in Europe have
> been a cause of great problems. However, this compilation provides a key
> for the members of the now consolidated European Bahá'í communities to
> understand how these differences can be made a cause of progress, how
> each European can be enabled to hand down to posterity a contribution
> from his own national genius. This key can be summarized in four points
> recommended by 'Abdu'l-Bahá: "to firmly adhere to the Covenant of God
> and His Testament"; "to manifest the utmost affection and kindness toward
> one another, to love each other with heart and soul, to make the utmost
> endeavour to come to the assistance of each other"; "to manifest exceeding
> love and fellowship toward all the people of the earth"; to "never rest, but
> strive day and night to guide the people." This seems to be the way that
> Bahá'ís can help to change "the confusion, the anxieties, the rivalries, and
> the current crisis" which still afflict "the spiritually impoverished...morally
> disoriented masses" of the European continent into the future that Shoghi
> Effendi described as "bidding fair to eclipse the radiance of those past ages
> which have successfully witnessed the introduction of the Christian Faith
> into the continent's northern climes, the efflorescence of Islamic culture
> that shed such radiance along its southern shores, and the rise of the
> Reformation in its very heart."
> 
> (12)
> 
> Julio Savi
> 
> End Notes
> 
> 1
> . Shoghi Effendi,
> Citadel of Faith. Messages to America 1947-1957 (
> Wilmette: Bahá'í
> Publishing Trust, 1970)
> 26
> .
> 
> 2
> .Shoghi Effendi,
> Citadel
> 
> 1
> .
> 
> 3
> .
> 
> Shoghi Effendi,
> Messages to the Bahá'í World: 1950-1957
> (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1971)
> 37
> .
> 
> 4
> .
> 
> Shoghi Effendi,
> Messages
> 
> 33
> .
> 
> 5
> .
> 
> Shoghi Effendi,
> Citadel
> 
> 26
> .
> 
> 6
> .
> 
> Shoghi Effendi,
> Citadel
> 
> 26
> .
> 
> 7
> .
> 
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá,
> Compilation
> [Ed. - sel
> 15
> ].
> 
> 8
> .
> 
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá,
> Compilation
> [Ed. - sel
> 8
> ].
> 
> 9
> .
> 
> Shoghi Effendi,
> The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh
> (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1955)
> 35
> .
> 
> 10
> .
> 
> All the following quotations are from the
> Compilation
> unless otherwise stated.
> 
> 11
> .
> 
> Shoghi Effendi,
> Citadel
> 
> 21
> .
> 
> 12
> .
> 
> Shoghi Effendi,
> Citadel
> 
> 26
> .
>
> — *Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland (Used by permission of the curator)*