“Mesdames mobedyars”

You deserve praise from every progressive and rational Zoroastrian for the cover story on the new class of Zoroastrian priestesses in Iran ("Mesdames mobed-yars,” Parsiana, May 21, 2011).

This is one of the finest developments in the history of our hoary religion and liberal community in the last 5,000-year-long (and not 2,600-year-long, as maintained by Christian scholars) history. It is a fitting reply to one mad Parsi who recently claimed that women were inferior to men!

How I wish that this reform had come about in India where 53.9 percent of Zoroastrians reside! But when we have rabid WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) elements, which have split the community vertically and put back our progress by 200 years, I am not surprised.

Iran’s Zoroastrians (20,000 to 22,000) have shown that our great religion’s light has been rekindled in the country of its origin.

B. T. DASTUR