Friday’s holiday wasn’t marked with gift giving or grandiose parades, but for members of the campus Bahá’í community, it marked one of the most sacred days of the year. On Friday, campus Bahá’ís celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh, who was a messenger from God and the founder of their religion.
Locally, University Bahá’ís
observed the holiday with celebrations at the Eugene Veterans Memorial Building and at Lane Community College. At the veterans club, members of the University’s Bahá’í Campus Association enjoyed
Persian dancing, food and music
to celebrate the birth of their religion’s founder.
Adviser for the Bahá’í Campus Association Don Addison — who played piano at one of the celebrations and spoke at the other —
said the holiday is one of the most central for followers of the international faith.
“(It was) one of the most important holidays in the whole year
because it celebrated the birthday
of the founder of the Bahá’í faith,” said Addison, an instructor and
student at the University. “And we don’t look up on him as just
some nice guy — although people automatically felt a great spirit
from him — but we believe that
he was God’s latest messenger
to humanity, exactly along the
same order as Jesus or Moses
or Abraham.
“That celebration night there … meant that we are thrilled to be part of this thing that’s so international,” he said.
University student Brett Wartchow, who played at the event with his friends and family, said the escape from commercialization and materialism helped him reconnect with his religion and his beliefs.
“For the Bahá’ís, it’s a time for celebrating. … It’s a time to celebrate his life and the message he brought to the world,” Wartchow said.
The Bahá’í faith is a clergy-
less faith with members around
the world who believe in the unity of humanity. Members come from many different religions and believe in the major figures of most of those faiths. Bahá’u’lláh claimed he was God’s messenger and the teacher who fulfills the promises of other religions.
Bahá’u’lláh, which means “glory of God,” was born in 1817, died
in 1892 and was the founder of the independent religion, Addison said.
Addison said that the Bahá’í Campus Association is open to everybody, but has about 30 to 50 regular members. The association’s house, located at 1458 Alder St., is the same house that belonged to Gordon Jackson, who became the first Bahá’í in the area when he moved to Eugene in the 1940s, Addison said.
The association has activities every Sunday and is also open to those who don’t follow the religion, Addison said.
Wartchow said he didn’t even know many of those who attended the Friday festivities because many of them weren’t Bahá’ís.
“It means different things
for everybody. … It’s really nice
for me, at least, to really spend some time reflecting on what exactly my faith means to me,” Wartchow said. “I really appreciate how in this faith things aren’t commercialized. For me, it’s a purely spiritual experience.”

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