Ugo Giachery

Ugo Giachery (born May 13, 1896 in Palermo , Italy , † July 5, 1989 in Apia , Samoa ) was an Italian Bahai and one of the twelve hands of the Cause , who were appointed by Shoghi Effendi on December 24, 1951 .

Life

Giachery came from an aristocratic Sicilian family. He studied chemistry and received his PhD from the University of Palermo . After the First World War he went to the United States , where he got to know the Baha'i faith and his future wife from Sweden . He married in 1926 and returned to Italy in 1947.

In 1948, Shoghi appointed Effendi Giachery as his personal assistant to acquire the materials necessary to build the Shrine of Bab in the Baha'i World Center in post-war Italy. To this end, he hired people to cut, chisel and polish Chiampo marble and pink Baveno granite according to the plans of the Canadian architect William Sutherland Maxwell . He then organized the transport of the finished parts to Haifa in Israel . This activity was not limited to Italy. He found a company in the Netherlands to produce the roof tiles . In honor of this hand of the cause, Shoghi Effendi referred to the southwest door of the mausoleum as Báb-i-Giachery.

In 1951 Giachery was appointed Hand of the Cause by Shoghi Effendi and in 1952 a member of the Baha'i International Council, the forerunner of the Universal House of Justice . In 1953 he was elected chairman of the National Spiritual Council of the Baha'i of Italy and Switzerland. Giachery was Shoghi Effendi's special representative at the international conferences in Stockholm in 1953 and in Chicago in 1958, and was an observer at the United Nations Economic and Social Council in Geneva for several years . In 1954, work began on the International Archives Building at the Bahai World Center and Shoghi Effendi Giachery reappointed his personal representative in Italy.

Giachery translated Baha'i literature into Italian and was the author of numerous articles on the Baha'i Faith. For example, in the book “Shoghi Effendi Recollections” he described his personal experiences with Shoghi Effendi and the Bahai World Center. Giachery's thoughts on the peace encyclical Pacem in terris by John XXIII. were republished in 1974. The Universal House of Justice appointed Giachery as its representative for the great centenary in August 1968 in Palermo , at which the banishment of Baha'u'llah from Gallipoli across the Mediterranean to the prison of Acre was commemorated. Giachery traveled extensively to all continents for more than a quarter of a century for the Baha'i Faith. In 1967 he introduced the head of state of Samoa , Malietoa Tanumafili II. , To the Baha'i religion and gave him a book with the letters of Baha'u'llah to the rulers of that time. Malietoa Tanufali II became a Baha'i and thus the first ruling head of state to adopt the Baha'i faith.

Giachery died in Apia in 1989 and was buried at the House of Worship in Samoa.

literature

• Ugo Giachery: The Bahai World, Vol. XVIII . Ed .: Bahai World Center. Haifa 1986, ISBN 0-85398-234-1 , p. 717-719 .
• Ugo Giachery: Shoghi Effendi Recollections . Oxford 1973, ISBN 0-85398-051-9 .
• Ugo Giachery: The Bahai World, Vol. XIV . Ed .: The Universal House of Justice. Haifa 1974, p. 612-619 .
• Mario Piarulli: Mano della Causa di Dio: dr. Ugo Giachery - Un tributo, Casa Editrice Bahai Ariccia . 1990, ISBN 88-7214-000-5 .