I was reading up on this concept:
Covenant-breaker - Wikipedia
Most Covenant-breakers are involved in schismatic groups, but not always. For example, a Baháʼí who refuses to follow guidance on treatment of Covenant-breakers is at risk of being named one. One article
[13] originally written for the Baháʼí Encyclopedia, characterized Covenant-breakers that have emerged in the course of Baháʼí history as belonging to one of four categories:
- Leadership challenge: These are persons who dispute the authority and legitimacy of the head of the religion and advance claims either for themselves or for another. The main examples of these are Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí and Charles Mason Remey.
- Dissidence: Those who actively disagree with the policies and actions of the head of the faith without, however, advancing an alternative claim for leadership. This group consisted mostly of opponents of the Baháʼí administration such as Ruth White, Julia Lynch Olin and Mirza Ahmad Sohrab.
- Disobedience: Those who disobey certain direct instructions from the head of the religion. Mostly the instruction in question is to cease to associate with a Covenant-breaker. Examples of this type include most of the descendants of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá during Shoghi Effendi's time.
- Apostates who maliciously attack the Baháʼí Faith. Examples include Ávárih, Sobhi and Níkú.
From the Wikipedia article about Covenant-Breaking you referenced:
Covenant-breaking does not refer to attacks from non-Baháʼís or former Baháʼís.[12] Rather, it is in reference to internal campaigns of opposition where the Covenant-breaker is seen as challenging the unity of the Baháʼí Faith, causing internal division, or by claiming or supporting an alternate succession of authority or administrative structure. The central purpose of the covenant is to prevent schism and dissension.
As to 1, those two individuals named went against explicit written wills and testaments by Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha about what the succession should be and tried to seize leadership themselves and cause a division in the Baha'i Faith. How can the Baha'is help bring about unity in the world when there are competing Baha'i sects? That is why these will and testaments were written in the first place. These individuals created nothing significant in disunifying Baha'is. There are no followers of Mirza Muhammad Ali today and very few of Charles Mason Remey, and of the latter there are more than one persons claiming to be the successor of him as the third Guardian. That Covenant-Breaking group itself is very small compared to the Baha'is following the Covenant, divided amongst themselves and confused, thus guaranteeing they will die out entirely at some point.
As to 2, Here's what Wikipedia says about Ruth White:
Ruth (Berkeley) White was an early American
Baháʼí who became known for challenging the
Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, one of the founding documents behind the
Baháʼí administration. She was designated a
Covenant-breaker by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's successor,
Shoghi Effendi.
White met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1912 in America, and again in 1920 when she went on pilgrimage to Haifa.
[1] When ʻAbdu'l-Bahá passed away in 1921, he left a will that designated Shoghi Effendi as the one that Baháʼís should turn to for guidance. It was this appointment that she opposed, and she went on to claim that the will was forged. Her claim was based in part on her belief that
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá would never advocate for a hierarchy, much less the establishment of a "papacy".
During her time of opposition, White wrote several letters to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada objecting to Shoghi Effendi and the idea of Spiritual Assemblies. She wrote a letter to the
United States Postmaster General requesting that the National Spiritual Assembly not be allowed to use the mail system, and she also wrote to the
High Commissioners for Palestine with complaints about Shoghi Effendi.
White hired a criminologist
Charles Ainsworth Mitchell to review photocopies of the original
Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in an attempt to prove it was a forgery.
[2] Neither White nor Mitchell could read
Persian, and her claims of a forgery were not taken up by many other Baháʼís opposed to Shoghi Effendi, such as
Ahmad Sohrab.
[3][4][5]
White was designated a
Covenant-breaker by Shoghi Effendi, and was excommunicated sometime after 1926 when the extent of her opposition became clear.
It seems to be true she did not create an alternate group herself, but a group claiming to be an alternate administration of Baha'is called the Free Baha'is came into being as a result of her deluded efforts. Shoghi Effendi recognized this and thus she was declared a Covenant-Breaker.
Sohrab is more complicated and he was not declared a Covenant-Breaker until 1939 though since 1921 he had not recognized Shoghi Effendi as the successor of Abdu'l-Baha from the beginning for no good reason at all. Basically he refused to allow oversight by the Administrative Order of one of the two organizations he created.
Ahmad Sohrab - Wikipedia
Julia Lynch Olin was in partnership with Sohrab in refusing oversight of the organization involved, and became a Covenant-Breaker in 1939 also.
3. Disobedience: Those who disobey certain direct instructions from the head of the religion. Mostly the instruction in question is to cease to associate with a Covenant-breaker. Examples of this type include most of the descendants of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá during Shoghi Effendi's time.
Most of the descendants of Abdu'l-Baha associated with followers of the half bother Mirza Muhammad Ali who tried to create an alternate competing administration, mostly relatives of the arch-breaker of the Covenant, even marrying into such relatives.
You might ask, why are you in danger of being declared a Covenant-Breaker if you do this? It is not easy to be be declared a Covenant-Breaker. There are people who try hard to reason with such people and work with them so they cease to be part of a alternate organization. If after a lot of such effort, it is seen to be of no avail, and they are declared Covenant-Breakers. Those who associate extensively with the exception of their association being part of their professional work and don't discuss who is the head the Faith with such people are in danger of becoming influenced negatively towards the head of the Baha'i Faith, and really have no chance of turning them back to recognizing the validly designated heads of the Baha'i Faith because learned individuals over a period of time tried to do that and failed. So not associating in friendship with Covenant-Breakers is an important principle of the Baha'i Faith to preserve the unity of the Baha'is as an organization.
4. Apostates who maliciously attack the Baháʼí Faith. Examples include
Ávárih,
Sobhi and
Níkú.
I don't know exactly why they were declared Covenant-Breakers. This is an obscure corner to me. I'll just cite what Shoghi Effendi said in the Wikipedia article about Covenant-Breaking:
Shoghi Effendi wrote to the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada in 1957:
People who have withdrawn from the Cause because they no longer feel that they can support its Teachings and Institutions sincerely, are not Covenant-breakers -- they are non-Baháʼís and should just be treated as such. Only those who ally themselves actively with known enemies of the Faith who are Covenant-breakers, and who attack the Faith in the same spirit as these people, can be considered, themselves, to be Covenant-breakers.
I can only theorize that those individuals did "attack the Faith in the same spirit as these people" who are Covenant-Breakers and allied "themselves actively with known enemies of the Faith who are Covenant-breakers".
I trust those in charge of declaring justly someone as being a Covenant-Breaker. I don't expect anyone not a Baha'i to do so because they wouldn't recognize that God would not allow that to happen with such people as decide that.
