“evidences of the non-autocratic character of the Bahá’í Administrative Order and of its inclination to democratic methods”

• The abolition of professional priesthood with its accompanying sacraments of baptism, of communion and of confession of sins,
• the laws requiring the election by universal suffrage of all local, national, and international Houses of Justice,
• the total absence of episcopal authority with its attendant privileges, corruptions and bureaucratic tendencies,

are further evidences of the non-autocratic character of the Bahá’í Administrative Order and of its inclination to democratic methods in the administration of its affairs. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)