In the heart of the European continent a community which, as predicted by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is destined, by virtue of its spiritual potentialities and geographical situation, to radiate the splendor of the light of the Faith on the countries that surround it, has been momentarily eclipsed through the restrictions which a regime that has sorely misapprehended its purpose and function has chosen to impose upon it. Its voice, alas, is now silenced, its institutions dissolved, its literature banned, its archives confiscated, and its meetings suspended. (Shoghi Effendi, letter ‘To the beloved of God and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout the United States and Canada’, December 25, 1938, ‘The Advent of Divine Justice’)
