This presentation explores the processes of continuity and change that have taken place along the institutionalisation of transnational clerical authority in contemporary Shi‘ism. It compares the traditional, informal, system of religious authority – the marja‘iyya – with a cleric-run international charity established in London to fulfil similar functions, in order to also ask about the dynamics of hybridisation that are at work when clerical authority adopts a Western-style NGO structure.