Siegfried Schopflocher

Siegfried Schopflocher (born September 26, 1877 in Fürth , Germany , † July 27, 1953 in Montreal , Canada ) was a German-Canadian Baha'i and one of the seven hands of the cause , who were appointed by Shoghi Effendi on February 29, 1952.

Life

Siegfried Schopflocher was born as the youngest of eighteen children of the Jewish merchant Solomon Schopflocher (1824–1903) and his wife Sarah Goetz (1835–1908). Growing up as an Orthodox Jew , he became an agnostic after attending school . After training as an “trainee trader”, he left Fürth on July 31, 1893 and moved to Frankfurt am Main . On October 26, 1906, he emigrated to Montreal, Canada , and became a successful industrialist. He was President of the Canadian Bronze Powder Works, with offices around the world, and had worldwide patent rights to bronze powder. In January 1918 he married Florence Evaline Snyder (1886–1970) in New York . Siegfried Schopflocher then got to know the Baha'i faith and in the summer of 1921 joined the Baha'i community in Green Acre in Eliot, Maine (where the Baha'i Summer School was opened later). In 1922 he traveled to Haifa on a pilgrimage . This was the beginning of numerous journeys to the center of the faith . Siegfried Schopflocher's many business trips gave him the opportunity to do assignments for Shoghi Effendi, to visit numerous local Baha'i communities around the world and to give public lectures. Siegfried Schopflocher was an elected member of the Joint National Spiritual Council of the Baha'i of the United States and Canada from 1924 to 1947 and of the National Spiritual Council of Canada from 1948. He campaigned for the development of the Green Acre Bahai School and the Geyserville Bahai School in California and the establishment of a Canadian Bahai school. He earned special services in connection with the House of Worship in Wilmette near Chicago , Illinois , and was therefore referred to by Shoghi Effendi as "Chief Temple Builder". With the support of Horace Holley, he succeeded in getting the Canadian Parliament to recognize the Baha'i National Spiritual Council in Canada by law in 1949. In 1952 Shoghi Effendi appointed Siegfried Schopflocher to the hand of the cause of God and commissioned him to assist the Baha'i National Spiritual Council in Canada in establishing a national center. Siegfried Schopflocher died after a brief illness and was buried near the grave of the First Canadian Hand of the Cause, William Sutherland Maxwell, in the Mt. Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

literature

• Roger White: A Compendium of Volumes of The Baha'i World I-XII 1925-1954 . Ed .: George Ronald. Oxford 1981, p. 647-649 . ISBN 0-85398-5 .
• Bahai World Center (Ed.): The Bahai World, Vol. XV . Haifa 1976, ISBN 0-85398-059-4 , pp. 488-489 .
• Barron Deems Harper: Lights of Fortitude . George Ronald, Oxford, UK 2007, ISBN 978-0-85398-413-9 , pp. 299-305 .