As the process of education in methods of mass teaching was taking place, the Faith’s membership was being transformed. In 1992, the Bahá’í world celebrated its second Holy Year, this one marking the centenary of the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh and the promulgation of His Covenant. More eloquently than words could have done, the ethnic, cultural and national diversity of the 27,000 believers who gathered at the Javits Convention Center in New York City—together with the thousands present at nine auxiliary conferences in Bucharest, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, Panama City, Singapore, Sydney and Western Samoa—provided compelling evidence of the success of Bahá’í teaching work around the world. An affecting moment occurred when the network of satellite broadcasts linked the gathering in Moscow with the one taking place in New York City, and Bahá’ís everywhere thrilled to greetings in Russian—the common language of some 280 million people from at least fifteen countries—that proclaimed a new phase in humanity’s response to Bahá’u’lláh. In the Moscow and Bucharest conferences could be glimpsed the rebirth of Bahá’í communities that had been nearly extinguished under the oppression of the Soviet regime and its collaborators. One of the last three surviving Hands of the Cause, ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan, who had lived in Russia, had the great joy of returning to Moscow, at the age of eighty-six, for the inaugural election of the National Assembly of that country. Local Spiritual Assemblies sprang up in all of the newly opened lands, and six new National Spiritual Assemblies were elected. In a brief space of time, pioneering and teaching activities in countries along the southern rim of the former Soviet empire—where the Faith had been similarly proscribed—soon brought into existence still more Local Assemblies and eight additional National Spiritual Assemblies. Bahá’í literature was translated into a range of new languages, energetic steps were taken to secure civil recognition of Bahá’í institutions, and representatives from Eastern Europe and the countries of the now vanished Soviet bloc began participating with their fellow believers in the external affairs work of the Faith at the international level.