Bahá'u'lláh abolished the clergy, and the abolition is thorough: there is no ordination, no seminary, no clerical dress, no confession, no absolution, no sacrament requiring an authorised celebrant, no preaching office, and no one supported financially to be religious. Marriages are witnessed rather than solemnised by a priest; funerals require a prayer that any Bahá'í may recite; devotional meetings have no leader. The functions clergy perform elsewhere are distributed between elected institutions, which act only corporately, and ordinary members, who act on their own initiative. Two appointed arms exist — the Continental Counsellors and the Auxiliary Boards — but they advise and encourage and have no authority to direct or decide. The stated reason is that clerical classes have historically become the principal obstacle to the recognition of new Manifestations, a claim the Kitáb-i-Íqán argues at length. The practical cost is that everything the faith does depends on volunteers with jobs, and the practical benefit is that there is no professional interest in the institution's survival.