The performance of a navjote in Toronto this May by a mobedyar has raised the hackles of The North American Mobeds Council (NAMC). They state that mobedyars may perform only basic ecclesiastical ceremonies, the navjote not being among them.
The association no doubt wants to preserve its priestly traditions while at the same time safeguarding the birth given turf of the priests. The names of the NAMC office bearers listed on their website all have the prefix "Ervad” indicating they were born of an athornan father and underwent the navar initiation ceremony. Their membership form requires both the date and place of the applicant’s navar and maratab ceremony to be stated.
In response to Parsiana’s query as to whether "only a male born in an athornan family can qualify to be a mobed under NAMC’s rules?” NAMC president Ervad Kobad Zarolia of Ontario, Canada replied, "As long as the navar ceremony is done in India we have to follow that line of thought. As soon as we have our own agiary in NA (North America) we will devise our own rules and hope that in time we will allow others (non-athornan family) to apply to become a mobed.”
Allowing for the prevailing sentiments among the North American mobed fraternity that was the best reason Zorolia could provide in defence of a racial and sexist bias that exists unfortunately amongst the clergy in NA and India.
In fairness to NAMC, the continental body has to contend with diametrically opposed views. As their website notes, in 1983 Zarolia "arranged for an informal meeting of mobeds of North America in Toronto to discuss the idea of forming a Mobed Council. The meeting was attended by 21 mobeds. The end result of the meeting could be summed up as ‘the mobeds agreed to disagree,’ the main obstacle being a wide diversity in the thinking of the mobeds ranging from ultra-orthodox to extreme reformists as well as the formation of a hierarchy within the mobeds of North America. The setback did not discourage Kobad and he continued to pursue the idea until the Council was formed.”
With such differing points of view, expecting any radical reforms to be endorsed by NAMC is wishful thinking. They have however permitted since 1999 lay men to become mobedyars as "our traditions allow any Zoroastrian to perform outer liturgical ceremonies in the absence of an ordained priest,” states the website. Ceremonies such as navjotes, weddings, boi on a consecrated fire, inner liturgical rituals are barred.
In 2011 NAMC, however, moved a step towards liberalization by accepting women as mobedyars. This was around the same time that the Iranian mobed council had welcomed women priests into their fold without restricting their duties to a perfunctory role. In Iran the only conditions for performing certain ceremonies such as the navjote was in the case of emergencies or when the occasion demanded. To begin with, and until formally announced, the women also could not tend a consecrated fire or perform funerary burial rites (in Iran Zoroastrians are buried, the dakhmas lying unused).
Tehran Anjoman-e-Mobedan president Dr Ardeshir Khorshidian believes that the basic principles of the Zoroastrian religion preach equality of rights for both men and women as also the duty of human beings to make the world progressive ("Mesdames mobedyars,” Parsiana, May 21, 2011).
As enunciated to Parsiana by one of the mobedyars, Parva Namiranian who is married to a mobed, "The main purpose of the whole process was to put into practice Zarathushtra’s teachings and our cultural belief about the equality of men and women and freedom of choice.”
In India women priests are still taboo. Many of our local priests appear to draw their inspiration from the Iranian ayatollahs rather than the Zoroastrian priesthood in the cradle of Zoroastrianism.
The Indian high priests, however, had given their sanction to a paramobed scheme put forward by the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India for lay men over 25 years ago. The object was to try and train lay people to man mofussil agiaries that were unable to lure regular mobeds to their fire temples. But only a few candidates opted for the posts and some of them subsequently were either found unsuited for employment or were hired and left the assignment disgruntled.
Women, the logical sex to take up mobedi as it is they who normally oversee the religious upbringing of children, were not considered for the post. In a male dominated, chauvinistic society, such a radical move would have been considered heretic.
There is no logical reason why the athornan father’s male offspring may become a priest but not the female. And why should the male child of an athornan woman who marries a behdin not be entitled to take up the priesthood? These may be traditions but they are based on gender discrimination. We have to learn from our Iranian counterparts otherwise they may be justified in saying it is the Parsis who are junglee, not them.
Ironically one need not be a priest to perform either a navjote or a wedding. Lay people can, and do perform such ceremonies. The registrar of marriages is a lay person. He or she may also be a priest but that is not a requirement. Navjotes are not registered. The ceremony is not necessarily recorded; it could be performed at a home, a hotel, a public hall… Sentiment, custom and tradition make people opt for the clergy performing the ceremonies, not the law.
By clinging to traditions that have their basis in inequality and prejudice, the priests are alienating themselves from the community.
The words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Julian Barnes excellent novel Arthur and George ring true, "how peculiarly repellent were the perversions of an institutional religion once it began its irreversible decline.” The novel tells the true story of Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, defending George Edulji, the son a Parsi vicar, convicted of a crime he did not commit.
Zoroastrianism thankfully is not yet in "irreversible decline.” But that is only because there are many defying the doctrines that cause decay.