Three Australian Baha’is have been appointed to a board of advisers to the national governing bodies of the Faith in Australia, New Zealand and a range of Pacific countries.
The Baha’i international governing body, the Universal House of Justice, announced this month that Sohayla Asari, Dinesh Kumar-Mills and Tessa Scrine will join the 11-member Continental Board of Counsellors for Australasia on 26 November for a five year term.
Ms Asari and Mr Kumar-Mills are currently auxiliaries to the Board and Ms Scrine is a member of the national governing body of the Faith in Australia, the National Spiritual Assembly. All will relinquish these positions to take up the role of Counsellor, an unpaid post.
Ms Asari is an education consultant in Melbourne, Mr Kumar-Mills is a business analyst in Brisbane, and Ms Scrine is the Director of the Australian Baha’i Community’s Office of External Affairs, based in Canberra.
There is no clergy in the Baha’i Faith, where authority rests with elected institutions. However, Counsellors are highly respected as learned and experienced Baha’is, and play a vital role in Baha’i administration.
They advise and work with the elected, nine-member National Spiritual Assemblies, and have the duty to stimulate in their region the expansion and consolidation of the Faith and to promote the spiritual, intellectual, and social aspects of Baha’i life.
The Universal House of Justice said outgoing Counsellors worldwide who have completed their terms of service have earned its “abiding gratitude for their self-sacrificing contributions”.
They include current Australian-based Counsellors, Dr David Chittleborough of Adelaide, Dr Eric Kingston or Melbourne, and Dr Manijeh Reyhani of Perth.