Mobed Mehraban Firouzgary
Mobed Mehraban Firouzgary is regarded as one of the Most Highly Respected Senior most Zarathushti Head Priest in Iran, as well as across the globe. He was born in Yazd, Iran on Yalda, the winter solstice night of December 21st considered to be the birth time of Meher Yazata.
He has been an inspiration for serving the worldwide Zoroastrian community, with a commendable willingness to share his wisdom and knowledge, as well as, for his outstanding contribution of numerous articles on various religious subjects.
He believes that: “Good and evil are not absolute but relative and that Sins are to be judged only by God. We ought to correct our thought, words and actions as needed to achieve a Happy and Harmonious Life."
He has been awarded the “Chehre Mandegar” (Everlasting personality) by the Tehran Zarthoshty Anjuman for his 5+ decades of selfless service to our community as well as humanity.
He has been appointed as the Marriage Registrar for Zoroastrians of Tehran, by the Justice Ministry of the Iranian government which he conducts with immense joy and pride. He has been a pioneer in Avesta recitations through the best researched pronunciations which he has spread through his conducted classes, teaching media, as well as audio recordings, together with his published Khordeh Avesta book, which has been standardized for teaching and public prayer recitations. He also “spearheaded the basis and graduation of eight lady mobedyars (para mobeds) in Iran.” Furthermore, being officiated in the Yasna rituals, he has trained five very proficient mobeds to replace him in that role.
He has represented Iran, and participated in panels in several venues: the Parzor UNESCO Filing of Novrooz amongst UNESCO’s World Cultural listings, The World Zoroastrian Congress in Tehran, and Tehran University celebrations of UNESCO’s declaration of the 2000th year of Iranian Culture. He has been involved in scores of national and international seminars on Iranian culture and interfaith meetings, the last being his Panel and Prayer sessions at the Ninth European Conference of Iranian Studies held at Berlin University, September 9th to the 13th 2019.
In addition to serving as a Mobed, he built an outstanding career that spanned over 5-decades, as an Industrial Electronics Engineer after receiving his Bachelor’s Degree from India in 1958. For 10-years, he was employed by J. N. Marshall & Co - a Parsi Owned Engineering firm in India, where he held responsible and prominent positions as the Service and Branch Manager.
In 1968, he married Mehrangiz from Iran and a year later returned to Iran where he was first employed by IBM international and then transferred to Honeywell Controls in Tehran where he served as the Head of the Electrical and Instrumentation department for over 20+ years. Even though he officially retired in 1999, he continued working until 2016.
His name “Mehraban” means kind, but he is kinder than kind. He truly is a person who is “gifted with a spiritual and luminous face, emanating vibrant energy along with the knowledge, wisdom and ability to propagate the pristine message of our prophet Zarathushtra”. He is referred to by all who know him as a “Peer”, the eldest, and most enlightened dedicated Iranian mobed. But with utmost humility and modesty, he prefers to be addressed as “Mobed Mehraban Firouzgary”.
