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The International Association for Religious Freedom is a world community of religious groups working together for justice, peace and religious freedom. Groups are accepted into membership in the IARF by the IARF Council, which meets annually. Applications may be obtained from the IARF Secretariat. To see the present list of group members of the IARF click here.

Individual members receive the IARF World and information on IARF programs. In Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and the United States of America, individuals carry out IARF activities through chapters. Some of these chapters are divided into local branches. Please check with the chapter person in your country to see if there is a branch located near you.

The IARF welcomes into membership anyone who is committed to the fundamental right of religious freedom and to understanding and mutual respect among persons of different religious traditions. Please join us in this important work.

The IARF is governed by a Council elected every three years by delegates from the member groups and chapters. For more information see:

• IARF History
• IARF Council
• IARF Constitution

President:
Mr Eimert van Herwijnen Remonstrantse Broederschap (Netherlands)
Wouter Eimert Rombout van Herwijnen was born in 1933 at Schiedam in the Netherlands. He has been married to Eve de Veer since 1957, and they have three children and seven grandchildren. He has a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University in Delft and worked for Royal Dutch/Shell Group from 1957-1985. His work included five years in Japan, from 1962-1967. He has been an active member of the Remonstrant Church (a small non-dogmatic denomination founded in 1619) and served on its Board for Interchurch Aid. After taking early retirement from the Shell-group in 1985 he joined the Board of the Dutch Industrial Mission. IN 1989 he was elected to the Board of the Remonstrant Church and served as its chairman from 1993-1997. He has been a member of the IARF Dutch Chapter since 1993 and helped to organize and lead the IARF conferences at Bad Boll, Germany in 1994, 1995 and 1998 and in the Netherlands in 1997. He was elected to the International Council in 1996.

Vice-President
Ellen Campbell - Canadian Unitarian Council (Canada)
Ellen Campbell was born and raised in San Francisco and lived in several U.S. communities before immigrating to Canada in 1967; she is now a Canadian citizen. She was Senior Manager and Executive Director of the Metropolitan YWCA for fourteen years, where one of her particular interests was building relationships between YWCAs around the world. For five years she has been Executive Director of the Canadian Unitarian Council, the national body of Unitarian and Universalist congregations in Canada. She is a member of the World Interfaith Association of Ontario. She has been on the IARF Council since 1996, and has been actively involved in planning for the 1999 Congress in Vancouver.

Treasurer:
Rev. Norio Sakai - Rissho Kosei-kai (Japan)
Rev Norio Sakai was born on 7 may 1943 in Japan. He graduated from Okazaki Technical High School in Aichi Prefecture in 1962, and worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. for three years. He became a staff member of Rissho Kosei-kai in 1965 and for 14 years was in charge of the Youth department of Rissho Kosei-kai. In 1979 he was appointed head of the Okazaki branch in Aichi Prefecture. In 1982 he came back to headquarters as Director of Branch Activities. In 1988 he served the Ota branch in Tokyo and in 1990 the Sapporo branch in Hokkaido, before returning to Tokyo to become Director of the Dissemination Department. In 1996 he was appoint to succeed Rev. Akira Uchida as the third chairman of Rissho Kosei-kai. He also serves as a Council member of the WCRP Japan Committee and as a Director of the Federation of New Religious Organizations of Japan.

Azam Bayburdi - Commuity of the Medicine Buddha (Hungary)
I was born in Leningrad, Soviet Union. My father was from Tebriz, Iran and his parents were Persian and Turkish. My mother was Russian, so I grew up in a bilingual environment. I graduated from the Indiological department, after spending a year in India, and in 1988 I moved to Budapest. Before the Hungarians arrived our land was home to Ostrogots, Visigots, Avarians, Slavs, Skythians and others. After the Hungarians came and were converted to Christianty, there was conflict between Catholics and Protestants followed by disputes with Muslims who entered the area under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Throughout this history the Khasars and Jews continued to survive. In such an environment I could not follow blindly any of the churches. I met my husband when he was doing research on Tibetan and Mongolian cultures, and his research led us to Buddhism. When we found that the Buddhist communities in Hungary were not open to our understanding of Buddhist teachings, our group of former Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews and Atheists as well as a few Mongolian Buddhists created a lay Buddhist, egalitarian community. Our focus has become the Tibetan system of medicine, which is why our group is named Community of the Medicine Buddha, and this alternative method of treatment will soon be taught in the Medical Schools in Hungary.

Rev. John Buehrens Unitarian Universalist Association (USA)
John Buehrens has been a Unitarian Universalist minister since 1973 and has served as parish minister at Unitarian Universalist congregations in Knoxville, TN (1973-81), Dallas (1981-87) and New York (1987-93). In 1993 he was elected President of the Unitarian Universalist Association. In this capacity, he is responsible for the UUA Board of Trustees for the administrative policies and programs of the Association and serves as its chief spokesperson. He has been active in a variety of civic activities, including serving on the boards of an anti-poverty agency, civil rights organizations, and groups concerned with housing and advocacy for the long-term mentally ill. In 1990 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology by Starr King School for the Ministry. He is married to the Reverend Gwen Landoc Buehrens, a priest in the Episcopal Church, and they have two daughters, Erica and Mary. In 1997 he was re-elected President of the UUA. He is co-author, with F. Forrester Church, of A Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism (Beacon Press, 1989), the second edition of which was published in 1998.

Bhiksuni Chueh Men - Fo Guang Shan (Taiwan)
Ven Bhiksuni Chueh Men grew up in Singapore and graduated from the Fo Guang Shan Chinese Buddhist Research Institute in August 1994. Since then she has held a number of positions with Fo Guang Shan monastery and planned the 4th and 5th International Monastic Seminars held there. In 1997 she travelled extensively in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, and Cambodia to plan the Bodhgaya International Full Ordination held in February 1998. During her travels she visited many nuns and saw their difficult living conditions. Ven Bhiksuni Chueh Men is currently the Executive General of Fo Guang Shan International Buddhist Progress Society and a member of the Executive Council of the World Fellowship of Buddhists.

Rev. Polly Guild - Unitarian Universalist Association (USA)
Polly Guild is a Unitarian Universalist minister with wide experience in the parish ministry who is now serving as Program Director of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists. She has long been an active member of the IARF and in 1995 was the recipient of the North American Chapter IARF Award.

Prof. Dr. Mumtaz Ali Khan - Center for Research and Development of Dalits (India)
Prof Khan resides in Bangalore, India. He holds Master's and Doctorate degrees in Sociology and a Bachelor's degree in Law and Hindi. He has served on the faculty of Mysore University and also Bangalore University, and he has been a member of the Board of Regents of the Agriculture University and of the State Planning Board. Currently he is the Director of the Centre for Research and Development of the Dalits, the Director of the Integrated Family Welfare Unit, and the Director of Khwaja Gharib Un Nawaz Welfare Centre. Prof Khan is the author of 21 books in English, and has served on the IARF Coordinating Council for South India since 1993.

Dr. Alexei Krindatch - Logos Society for Christian Culture (Russia)
Alexei Krindatch is employed by the Institute of Geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. His area of expertise is research concerning the religious communities of Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. He first contacted the IARF in 1991 on behalf of Logos, a non-profit organization of scholars and artists established in Russia to recover and renew Russian heritage for contemporary society. He attended the 1993 IARF Congress in Bangalore and led a workshop there. He spent part of 1995 as a Fellow with the Human Rights Center at Columbia University in New York City, and as part of that program worked for a month with the IARF Secretariat in Oxford. In 1996 he was elected to the IARF International Council

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling - Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (USA)
Rabbi Mordechai Leibling was born in Brooklyn, New York to holocaust survivors who immigrated to the U.S. after the war. He received a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.A. in History of American Civilisation from Brandeis University. He then worked as a community organizer in Boston, MA for several years before attending rabbinical school. He was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and went on to serve the Reconstructionist movement. From 1986-1998 he served as Executive Director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, he resigned to become a senior consultant in order to spend more time with his wife Lynne Iser and their five children. He serves on the Boards of: Mazon- A Jewish Response to Hunger; Eilat Hayyim- A Jewish Centre for Healing; The U.S. Interfaith Committee for Peace in the Middle East; and the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice.

Rev. Anne McClelland - British General Assembly (UK)
Rev Anne McClelland is a retired British Unitarian minister and former President of the British General Assembly of Unitarian Churches, 1995-1996. She is married to Rev. James McClelland, and they have one son, two daughters and two grandchildren. She has served for a number of years on the executive committee of the Interfaith Network for the UK, and at present she is a trustee of the International Interfaith Centre at Oxford. She was a founding member and secretary of Richmond Interfaith Group, and is particularly interested in enabling greater understanding between people of different faiths and in the deepening of spirituality in daily life.

Rev. Tatsuo Miyake - Konko Church of Izuo (Japan)
Rev Tatsuo Miyake was born in Osaka, the first son of Rev Toshsio Miyake. He graduated from Doshisha University and, after studying at the Konko Theological Seminary, was ordained as a Konko minister. Since 1961 he has served as the Associate Chief Minister of the Konko Church of Izuo. In 1970 he was Director of the Steering Committee for the first Assembly of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, and in 1987 he became a Council member of WCRP/Japan Committee. He joined the IARF Council in 1993.

Ranjit Mukherji - Ramakrishna Mission (India)
Ranjit Mukherji is Assistant Director of the Ramakrishna Mission Lokasiksha Parishad in Narendrapur, India, the major training center for the Ramakrishna Mission. He has coordinated the Evaluation Cell that supervises the IARF Social Service Network in India, and he attended IARF Congresses in 1993 and 1996.

Dr. Creamlimon Nongbri - UU North Eastern India (India)
Dr Nongbri was born and grew up in the village of Nongkrem, about 14 kilometers from Shillong, the capital of the state of Meghalaya in India. She has a double Masters degree in Political Science and Education and a Ph.D. degree in Education from North Eastern Hill University in India. She is presently a Lecturer at the Department of Education at the University. Dr Nongbri has published a number of research papers and belongs to several professional organizations. She is an executive member of the Local Development Committee in Shillong and provides professional services through family counselling centers to women who are the victims of atrocities. Dr Nongbri is Assistant Secretary of the Education Committee of the Unitarian Union and has attended IARF Congresses in 1984, 1993 and 1996.

Mr. Manfred J. Paul - Deutscher Unitariar (Germany)
Manfred J. Paul holds the degree in Commerce from Hamburg University (1961) and the Master of Business Administration (MBA) from INSEAD at Fontainebleau, France (1962). He worked for 32 years in the fields of Accounting, Management Consulting and International Control, as last in the coal mining and energy sector, also travelling to Western countries and East Africa. He has been married to Antje Schmielau since 1969, and they have three children. He is has served Deutshce Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft at various leading functions up to now and is a member of the Liberal Party's National Commission on Religious Matters. He has been an IARF Council member since 1996. Vancouver 1999 will be his seventh IARF Congress (and the sixth for his wife).

Dr. Mohinder Singh - Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan (India)
Mohinder Singh was born in what is now Pakistan. He has a Ph.D. in Sikh history from the University of Delhi and has taught history at Baring College, the University of Delhi, and Punjabi University. He is a founding editor of Studies of Sikhism and Comparative Religion, and has published many writings on Sikh religious history and culture. He served as the Director of the Guru Nanak Foundation from 1982-1990 and is presently Director of Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan. In 1993 Dr Singh joined the IARF Council.

Rev. David Steers - Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church (Ireland)
David Steers was educated at the Universities of Oxford and Manchester and the Unitarian College in Manchester. Since 1989 he has been Minster of All Souls' Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Belfast, a church with a well-established liberal tradition and a long history of cross-community and ecumenical links. He has served on Executive Committee of the Irish Council of Churches (ICC), the Department of Theological Questions of the Irish Inter-Church Meeting, the Irish National Committee of Christian Aid and other ecumenical organizations. He is also a member of the Councils of both the Unitarian Historical Society and the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland. A member of the IARF Council since 1996, he and his wife, Sue, have four children.

Bishop Arpad Szabo - Transylvanian Unitarian Church (Romania)
Bishop Szabó was born on April 15, 1935 in Petreni, Romania. He attended the Unitarian high school in Cristuru Secuiesc, which in 1948 was taken over by the state. In 1974 he received a Th.D. degree in New Testament studies from the Protestant Theological Institute and became a full-time professor, teaching Old and New Testament for the Unitarian theological students. Dr Szabó studied at Meadville/Lombard Theological School (Chicago, USA) in 1977-78, and served as Rector of the Protestant Theological Institute between 1990-1994. He has received honorary doctorates from the Protestant Theological Faculty of Montreal in 1989 and from Meadville/Lombard Theological School of Chicago in 1994. In December 1996 he was elected by the Supreme Consistory as the 30^th Bishop of the Unitarian Church of Romania. Bishop Szabó has been married since 1961 to Magda Fülöp, and they have a son and now two grandsons.

Sebellon Wale - Silliman Universiy (Philippines)
Sebellon Wale is a medical doctor who has devoted most of his life to community health. He graduated from the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of London in 1973 and since then has worked at Silliman University Medical Center in Dumaguete City. In 1990 he became Director of the Silliman University Extension Program, and in 1994 he was appointed Director of the Office of External Affairs of Silliman University. His wife, Fe Sycip Wale, is also a physician and received in 1996 the IARF Albert Schweitzer Award in recognition of her community health work for the rural poor of the Philippines.

Rev. Yukitaka Yamamoto - Tsubaki Grand Shrine (Japan)
Rev Dr Yukitaka Yamamoto, the 69th High Priest of Tsubaki Grand Shrine, was born in August 1923 as the second son of Yukitoshi Yamamoto, who was one of the first conscientious objectors in Mie prefecture. Rev Yamamoto graduated from the specialist college, Takanan Juku, in August 1942 and , as a political officer in the Japanese Navy, was dispatched to New Guinea. One of 12 Japanese survivors in New Guinea at the end of the war, Rev Yamamoto became determined to prevent warfare in the future. In 1946 he entered Kogakkan Univeristy to study for priesthood in the Shrine Shinto tradition, which is totally different from State Shinto. Between 1955 and 1965 he engaged daily in misogi (waterfall purification) in order to cultivate his spirituality. In 1968 the reconstruction of Tsubaki Grand Shrine joined the IARF in 1969 and Rev Yamamoto has served on the IARF Council since 1981 and as President since 1996.

Kayoko Yakota - International Association for Liberal Religious Women (Japan)
Kayoko Yokata is a member of Rissho Kosie-kai and has been editor of the Japan Chapter Newsletter for 15 years. She has attended IARF Congresses since 1984 and IALRW meetings since 1987. She has also been involved in the World Conference on Religion and Peace and its Asian regional activities. She is married to a manager of a computer company in Tokyo and they have one daughter. For 24 years she has been the President of the Kosei High School alumni association.

IARF Constitution

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