Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Moonies, dies in South Korea | World news | The Guardian Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Moonies, dies in South Korea Self-proclaimed messiah notorious for mass weddings and creation of Unification Church dies aged 92 Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Moonies, dies in South Korea Self-proclaimed messiah notorious for mass weddings and creation of Unification Church dies aged 92 Monday 3 September 2012 03.15 EDT First published on Monday 3 September 2012 03.15 EDT Close This article is 4 years old He married thousands of people in mass weddings, made millions from his church's business interests and was accused of brainwashing his members and breaking up families. But the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church – whose followers became known as "Moonies" – managed to shed the mantle of suspicion and ridicule to become a friend of political and religious leaders before his death in South Korea on Sunday, aged 92.

Moon saw himself as a messiah and created a church that became a worldwide movement and claims to have around 3 million members, including 100,000 in the United States. Ahn Ho-yeul, a Unification Church spokesman, told the Associated Press that Moon died at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong, north-east of Seoul, with his wife and children at his bedside, two weeks after being hospitalised with pneumonia. The church was seen as a cult in the 1970s and 80s, and was regularly accused of conning new recruits, holding them against their will, splitting families and forcing initiates to give over their life savings. The church responded to accusations by saying many other new religious movements faced similar attacks in their early stages. Allegations of brainwashing which were common in the 1980s have rarely been heard since. Moon was born in what would become North Korea in 1920 to a family that followed Confucian beliefs, but when he was 10 years old the family converted to Christianity and joined the Presbyterian church. Moon said he was 16 when Jesus Christ called upon him to complete His work.

He said he resisted twice before finally accepting the task. He was jailed for five years by the North Korean government in 1948, but escaped in 1950 when his guards fled as United Nations troops advanced. He was an active anti-Communist throughout the cold war. Moon founded the church in 1954 amid the ruins of South Korea and promoted a mixture of Christianity and his own conservative, family-oriented teachings. He preached new interpretations of lessons from the Bible, and fused elements of Christianity and Confucianism – outlining his principles in his book, Explanation of the Divine Principle, published in 1957. In later years, the church built a business empire that included the Washington Times newspaper, the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, Bridgeport University in Connecticut, as well as a hotel and a car plant in North Korea. It acquired a ski resort, a professional soccer team and other businesses in South Korea, and a seafood firm that supplies sushi to Japanese restaurants across the United States. In 1982, the church sponsored the American film Inchon, about the Korean war.

Moon began rebuilding his relationship with North Korea in 1991, when he met the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, in the eastern industrial city of Hamhung. In his autobiography, Moon said he asked Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, and Kim responded that his atomic programme was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to "kill my own people". "The two of us were able to communicate well about our shared hobbies of hunting and fishing. At one point, we each felt we had so much to say to the other that we just started talking like old friends meeting after a long separation," Moon wrote. He added that he heard Kim tell his son: "After I die, if there are things to discuss pertaining to north-south relations, you must always seek the advice of President Moon." When Kim died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea, drawing criticism from conservatives at home. Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong Il, sent roses, prized wild ginseng, Rolex watches and other gifts to Moon on his birthday each year. Kim Jong Il died late last year and was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un.

Moon sent a delegation to pay respects during the mourning period for Kim Jong Il. The church leader also developed good relationships with conservative American leaders, including Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. However, he was found guilty of tax evasion in the United States, where he lived for 30 years, and served 13 months of an 18 month sentence. As he grew older, Moon quietly handed over day-to-day control of his multibillion-dollar religious and business empire, companies ranging from hospitals and universities to a ballet troupe. His youngest son, the Rev Hyung-jin Moon, was named the church's top religious director in April 2008. Other sons and daughters were put in charge of the church's business and charitable activities in South Korea and abroad. After ending his first marriage, Moon wedded a South Korean, Hak Ja Han Moon, in 1960. She often was at Moon's side for the mass weddings. Their youngest son told the Associated Press in a February 2010 interview that Moon's offspring do not see themselves as his successors. "Our role is not inheriting that messianic role," he said.

"Our role is more of the apostles, where we share … where we become the bridge between understanding what kind of lives [our] two parents have lived." Moon is survived by his second wife and 10 children. Marriage lines The Reverend Sun Myung Moon's mass weddings were a central aspect of the Unification Church. He conducted his first in Seoul in the early 1960s, and the "blessing ceremonies" grew in scale over the years. A 1982 wedding at New York's Madison Square Garden, the first outside South Korea, drew thousands of participants. "International and intercultural marriages are the quickest way to bring about an ideal world of peace," Moon said in a 2009 autobiography. "People should marry across national and cultural boundaries with people from countries they consider to be their enemies so that the world of peace can come that much more quickly." In 2009, Moon married 45,000 people in simultaneous ceremonies worldwide in his first large-scale mass wedding in years, the church said. Steven Hassan spent two-and-a-half years being 'brainwashed' by the Rev Sun Myung Moon's controversial Unification Church.

This is his story Published: 3 Sep 2012 Rev. Sun Myung Moon, 92, Unification Church Founder, Dies - The New York Times The New York Times Asia Pacific |Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Self-Proclaimed Messiah Who Built Religious Movement, Dies at 92 Search Continue reading the main story Photo The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, right, with his wife, Hak Ja Han, married 2,075 couples at Madison Square Garden in 1982. Credit United Press International The Rev. Sun Myung Moon , the Korean evangelist, businessman and self-proclaimed messiah who built a religious movement notable for its mass weddings, fresh-faced proselytizers and links to vast commercial interests, died on Monday in Gapyeong, South Korea . He was 92. His death was announced on his church’s Web site, which said he had been battling complications from pneumonia, including kidney failure. Mr. Moon courted world leaders, financed newspapers and founded numerous innocuously named civic organizations. To his critics, he pursued those activities mainly to lend legitimacy to his movement, known as the Unification Church, although his methods were sometimes questionable.

In 2004, for example, he had himself crowned “humanity’s savior” in front of astonished members of Congress at a Capitol Hill luncheon. Mr. Moon was a leading figure in what Eileen V. Barker, a professor emeritus of sociology at the London School of Economics, called “the great wave of new religious movements and alternative religiosity in the 1960s and 1970s in the West,” a time when the Hare Krishna and Transcendental Meditation movements were also gathering force. Mr. Moon, said Professor Barker, an expert on new religious movements, was “very important in those days — as far as the general culture was concerned — in the fear of cults and sects.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Building a business empire in South Korea and Japan, Mr. Moon used his commercial interests to support nonprofit ventures, then kept control of them by placing key insiders within their hierarchies. He avidly backed right-wing causes, turning The Washington Times into a respected newspaper in conservative circles.

An ardent anti-Communist who had been imprisoned by the Communist authorities in northern Korea in the 1940s, he saw the United States as the world’s salvation. But in the late 1990s, after financial losses, defections and stagnant growth in the church’s membership , he turned on America, branding it a repository of immorality — “Satan’s harvest” — and repositioned his movement as a crusade for moral values. As Mr. Moon approached 90, not long after he survived a helicopter crash in 2008, three of his sons and a daughter began assuming more responsibility for running the church and his holdings. (According to reports at the time, Mr. Moon and 15 others, including family members, were injured when their helicopter crashed on a mountain near Seoul. There were no fatalities.) In its early years in the United States, the Unification Church was widely viewed as little more than a cult, one whose polite, well-scrubbed members, known derisively as Moonies, sold flowers and trinkets on street corners and married in mass weddings.

In one of the last such events, in 2009, 10,000 couples exchanged or renewed vows before Mr. Moon at Sun Moon University near Seoul. Photo Mr. Moon, center, with his wife in 1997. He founded the Unification Church in 1954. Credit J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press A Focus on Marriage Such weddings were the activity most associated with Mr. Moon in the United States. They were in keeping with a central tenet of his theology, a mix of Eastern philosophy, biblical teachings and what he called God’s revelations to him. In the church’s view, Jesus had failed in his mission to purify mankind because he was crucified before being able to marry and have children. Mr. Moon saw himself as completing the unfulfilled task of Jesus: to restore humankind to a state of perfection by producing sinless children, and by blessing couples who would produce them. Marriage was a key part of achieving salvation, and for a couple the marriage was as much a commitment to the church as it was to each other.

In a ceremony involving 2,075 couples at Madison Square Garden in 1982, for example, the men wore identical blue suits and the women lace and satin gowns. Mr. Moon was said to have made the matches, based on questionnaires, photographs and the recommendations of church officials. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Often the couples had met only weeks earlier or could speak to each other only through an interpreter. Many had to remain separated for several years, doing church work, before they were allowed to consummate the unions. Mr. Moon struggled against bad publicity. He was sent to prison on tax evasion charges and accused of influence-buying and of maintaining ties to the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. He denied both allegations. In the late 1970s he was caught up in a Congressional investigation into attempts by South Korea to influence American policy. There were battles with local officials over zoning for church buildings and tax-exempt status. As his church grew more prominent in the 1970s and ’80s, it became embroiled in lawsuits over soliciting funds, acquiring property and recruiting followers. Defectors wrote damaging books.

From 1973 to 1986 at least 400 of the church’s flock were abducted by their family members to undergo “deprogramming,” according to an estimate by David G. Bromley, a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and an expert on Mr. Moon. The church denied that it had brainwashed its followers, saying members joined and stayed of their own free will. Mr. Moon said he was the victim of religious oppression and ethnic bias because of his Korean heritage. Established churches were angered, he said, because they felt threatened by his movement. “I don’t blame those people who call us heretics,” he was quoted as saying in “Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church” (1977), a sympathetic account by Frederick Sontag. “We are indeed heretics in their eyes because the concept of our way of life is revolutionary: We are going to liberate God.” Prominent people were paid to appear at Moon-linked conferences. The first President George Bush did so after he left office. Others, like former President Gerald R. Ford, Bill Cosby, Mikhail S.

Gorbachev and Jack Kemp, attended banquets and gatherings, sometimes saying later that they had not known of a connection between Mr. Moon and the organizations that invited them. Photo Mr. Moon leaving prison in Danbury, Conn., in 1985 after serving time for tax evasion. Credit Bob Child/Associated Press Personal setbacks marked Mr. Moon’s later years. In 1984, a son, Heung Jin, died at 17 from injuries sustained in a car crash. Another son, Young Jin Moon, who was 21, committed suicide in 1999 by jumping from a 17th-story balcony at Harrah’s hotel in Reno, Nev. In 1995 Nansook Hong, the wife of his eldest son, Hyo Jin Moon, who at one time was Mr. Moon’s heir apparent, broke from the family and wrote a book characterizing her husband as a womanizing cocaine user who watched pornographic movies and beat her, once when she was seven months pregnant. Ms. Hong portrayed the entire Moon family as dysfunctional, spoiled and divided by intrigue and hypocrisy.

(She also wrote that the church believed that the spirit of Heung Jin had returned for a time in the body of a Zimbabwean man who traveled the world and, with Mr. Moon’s sanction, beat straying church members.) Advertisement Continue reading the main story From early on Mr. Moon was revered by his followers as the messiah, and in 1992 he conferred that title on himself. He also declared that he and his second wife, Hak Ja Han, were the “true parents of all humanity.” Mr. Moon founded the Unification Church in South Korea in 1954 and began organizing it on a large scale in the United States in the early 1970s. It eventually claimed up to three million members worldwide, but historians of religion dispute that number, estimating a membership of 50,000 at the church’s height in the late 1970s, with only a few thousand in the United States. Membership has been difficult to evaluate more recently; church officials give different estimates and often define membership differently, according to an individual’s level of involvement. Building an Empire Mr.

Moon’s organizations established connections with African-American religious leaders, and he made forays into culture and education, establishing a ballet company in South Korea and financing a ballet school in Washington. In 1992 an organization with ties to Mr. Moon rescued the University of Bridgeport, in Connecticut, from bankruptcy, pouring in $110 million in subsidies over a decade and taking effective control. Mr. Moon received an honorary degree. The university’s administration denied that the church had influence, but critics of the arrangement contended that students were being lured into church training with the promise of scholarships, noted that the church had opened a boarding school on campus for members’ children, and said that the church had used the university to import money, in the form of tuition, as well as followers, in the form of the many foreign students who attended. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy For a time Mr. Moon lived in an 18-acre compound in Irvington, N.Y., which Ms.

Hong described as having a ballroom, two dining rooms (one with a pond and waterfall), a kitchen with six pizza ovens and a bowling alley upstairs. The church owned another estate, Belvedere, in nearby Tarrytown. Farther north along the Hudson River, the church founded the Unification Theological Seminary in Barrytown, N.Y. On its Web site, it sometimes is referred to as “U.T.S.: The Interfaith Seminary.” Mr. Moon’s business ventures in South Korea at one time or another included construction, hospitals, schools, ski resorts, newspapers, auto parts, pharmaceuticals, beverages and a professional soccer team. He also had commercial interests in Japan, where right-wing nationalist donors were said to be one source of financing. In the United States, Mr. Moon had interests in commercial fishing, jewelry, fur products, construction and real estate. He bought many properties in the New York area, including the New Yorker Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and the Manhattan Center nearby.

At one time or another he controlled newspapers including Noticias del Mundo and The New York City Tribune; four publications in South Korea; a newspaper in Japan, The Sekai Nippo; The Middle East Times in Greece; Tiempos del Mundo in Argentina; and Últimas Noticias in Uruguay. In 2000, a church affiliate bought what was left of United Press International. The extent of his holdings was somewhat of a mystery, but one figure gives a clue: Mr. Moon acknowledged that in the two decades since the founding of The Washington Times in 1982, he pumped in more than $1 billion in subsidies to keep it going. Photo Mr. Moon receiving an honorary degree from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, which was saved from bankruptcy by a group tied to him. Credit Bob Child/Associated Press The church said its various operations earned tens of millions of dollars a year worldwide. In their book “Cults and New Religions” (2006), Mr. Bromley and Douglas E.

Cowan wrote that according to church doctrine, a member “recognizes Moon’s messianic status, agrees to contribute to the payment of personal indemnity for human sinfulness, and looks forward to receiving the marital Blessing and building a restored world of sinless families.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Self-Proclaimed Messiah Sun Myung Moon was born on Jan. 6, 1920, in a small rural town in what is now North Korea, according to his official biography. When he was 10, his family joined the Presbyterian Church. When he was a teenager, around Easter 1935, according to Unification Church lore, Jesus appeared to him and anointed him God’s choice to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. A secular education beckoned, and in 1941 Mr. Moon entered Waseda University in Japan, where he studied electrical engineering. Two years later he returned to Korea and married Sun Kil Choi, who bore him a son. In 1946, leaving them behind, he moved to Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea, to found the Kwang-Ya Church, a predecessor of the Unification Church.

He was imprisoned by the Communist authorities, and later said that they had tortured him. He was freed in 1950 — by United Nations forces, his official biography says — and was said to have walked 320 miles to Pusan, on the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. There, as the account goes, he built a church with United States Army ration boxes and lived in a mountainside shack. Despite the centrality of marriage in his developing theology, Mr. Moon divorced Ms. Choi in 1952 (something that was glossed over in the official biography) and the following year moved to Seoul, where he founded the Unification Church in 1954. Within a year, about 30 church centers had sprung up. Before the decade was out, he published “The Divine Principle,” a dense exposition of his theology that has been revised several times; in her book, Ms. Hong, his daughter-in-law, said it was written by an early disciple based on Mr. Moon’s notes and conversation. He sent his first church emissaries to Japan, the source of early growth, and the United States, and began building his Korean business empire.

Rumors of sexual relations with disciples, which the church denied, dogged the young evangelist, and he fathered a child in 1954. In 1960, Mr. Moon married the 17-year-old Hak Ja Han, who would bear him 13 children and be anointed “true parent.” He embarked on world tours over the next decade and in 1972 settled in the United States, seeing it as the promised land for church growth. “I came to America primarily to declare the New Age and new truth,” he is quoted as saying in the book “Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church.” He took an interest in politics, urging that President Richard M. Nixon be forgiven for his role in the Watergate crisis. Church leaders plotted a strategy to defend the president and held rallies in support of Nixon that drew thousands to Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden and the National Mall. Advertisement Mr. Moon’s interests expanded into film when a church-linked company backed the 1982 movie “Inchon,” a $42 million Korean War epic notable for bad reviews and the casting of Laurence Olivier as Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Photo Mr.

Moon in 2009. Credit Yonhap, via European Pressphoto Agency A Litany of Scandals In the late 1970s, Mr. Moon came under the scrutiny of federal authorities, mainly over allegations that he was involved in efforts by the South Korean government to bribe members of Congress to support President Park Chung-hee. A Congressional subcommittee said there was evidence of ties between Mr. Moon and Korean intelligence, and that the church had raised money and moved it across borders in violation of immigration and local charity laws. Then, in October 1981, Mr. Moon was named in a 12-count federal indictment. He was accused of failing to report $150,000 in income from 1973 to 1975, a sum consisting of interest from $1.6 million that he had deposited in New York bank accounts in his own name, according to the indictment. “I would not be standing here today if my skin were white and my religion were Presbyterian,” Mr. Moon said after the charges were announced.

“I am here today only because my skin is yellow and my religion is Unification Church.” He called the case a government conspiracy to force him out of the country. Mr. Moon was convicted the next year of tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was assigned to kitchen duty. As his church’s fortunes declined in the United States, Mr. Moon revised his pro-American views. In a 1997 speech, he said America had “persecuted” him. He also attacked homosexuals and American women. Mr. Moon and his church largely dropped from public view in the late ’90s and 2000s, but once in a while they attracted attention. In 2001, a Roman Catholic archbishop from Zambia, Emmanuel Milingo, married a Korean woman in a multiple wedding performed by Mr. Moon. The a rchbishop then renounced the union . One of the more bizarre moments in Mr. Moon’s later years came on March 23, 2004, at what was described as a peace awards banquet, held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington. Members of Congress were among the guests. At one point Representative Danny K.

Davis, an Illinois Democrat, wearing white gloves, carried in on a pillow one of two gold crowns that were placed on Mr. Moon and his wife. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Some of the members of Congress said they had no idea that Mr. Moon was to be involved in the banquet, though it was hosted by the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a foundation affiliated with the Unification Church. At the banquet, Mr. Moon said emperors, kings and presidents had “declared to all heaven and earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s savior, messiah, returning lord and true parent.” He added that the founders of the world’s great religions, along with figures like Marx, Lenin, Hitler and Stalin, had “found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.” A version of this article appears in print on September 3, 2012, on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Founder of the Unification Church, Dies at 92.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Sun Myung Moon, Unification Church Founder, Dies : NPR Sun Myung Moon, Unification Church Founder, Dies Embed Embed Sun Myung Moon, Unification Church Founder, Dies Sun Myung Moon, Unification Church Founder, Dies Embed Embed September 3, 20124:00 AM ET Doualy Xaykaothao The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, has died at the age of 92 in Korea. Unification church members viewed him as a messiah, despite allegations of cult-like behavior and financial fraud. Moon was known for presiding over mass weddings and starting the conservative newspaper The Washington Times. DAVID GREENE, HOST: Followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon are in mourning today. The 92-year-old founder of the controversial Unification Church died Sunday in South Korea. The evangelical leader was often accused of running a cult with millions of followers nicknamed Moonies. He's perhaps best known for joining tens of thousands of couples together at mass weddings, and more recently for his billion dollar business empire. Reporter Doualy Xaykaothao visited Reverend Moon's church in Seoul and brings us this report.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) DOUALY XAYKAOTHAO, BYLINE: As the Rev. Sun Myung Moon lay on his deathbed, followers sang and cried at a service, praying that Moon would recover from what doctors said were complications related to pneumonia. Gunnard Johnston was there, alongside his Japanese wife, a teenage son, and hundreds of others at Seoul's Unification Church. Johnston joined the Unificationist movement 37 years ago. GUNNARD JOHNSTON: Reverend Moon helped me to understand who Jesus really was. And I can see in his life that he is being treated by the powers that be exactly the way Jesus was being treated. So if I love Jesus, I have to love Reverend Moon, because he is doing exactly what Jesus called him to do. XAYKAOTHAO: Moon was born in what is now North Korea and claimed that when he was in his teens, Jesus appeared before him and asked him to continue his work on Earth. According to Moon, this meant becoming parent to all of humanity. Followers call Reverend Moon True Father and his wife, Hak Ja Han, True Mother.

Moon is a self-declared messiah, who drew criticism and charges of brainwashing for demanding that followers cut ties with their families and adopt austere lives. At the same time, Moon built a multi-billion dollar business empire, which includes a major seafood distributor, The Washington Times newspaper, a gun factory, and the Art Deco New Yorker Hotel. But Nansook Hong, a former daughter-in-law of Reverend Moon, says in her book, "In the Shadow of the Moons," Reverend Moon is not Jesus. Hong married Moon's oldest son when she was just 15 and years later divorced him after reporting his cocaine addiction and physical abuse. Her ex-husband later died of heart failure. In a "60 Minutes" interview with the late Mike Wallace, Hong explains how she felt betrayed by the church leader. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "60 MINUTES") MIKE WALLACE: Why are you telling this story? NANSOOK HONG: Because I feel that I was duped. WALLACE: Duped? HONG: Duped. I feel I was conned, and I had a certain naive, I think, idealism that I wanted to work for God.

And I do think a lot of people have that, and a lot of organizations, like Moon, do take full advantage of those people, and I was one of them. XAYKAOTHAO: Other Christians dismiss Unificationists as a cult and not a true religion. But Dr. Bo Hi Pak, one of the few in Moon's closely guarded inner circles, disagrees. He preached to a packed audience at Sunday's service, while flashing photos of Reverend Moon with former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung and the late Kim Jong Il. DR. BO HI PAK: He is truly the world's finest peacemaker. From the religious point of view, he is our father. He's our messiah. He's our second coming. XAYKAOTHAO: The church is in the midst of preparing for Moon's funeral, expected mid-month. In the meantime, the South Korean government is considering if it will allow representatives from North Korea to attend the memorial. For NPR News, I'm Doualy Xaykaothao in Seoul. Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Rev. Moon, Unification Church founder known for mass weddings, dies at 92 | Fox News Rev. Moon, Unification Church founder known for mass weddings, dies at 92 Published September 02, 2012 Sun Myung Moon: 1920-2012 The Rev. Sun Myung Moon founded his religious movement in Seoul in 1954 after surviving the Korean War. He preached new interpretations of lessons from the Bible and gained fame -- and notoriety -- in the 1970s and 1980s for holding mass weddings of thousands of followers, often from different countries, whom Moon matched up in a bid to build a multicultural religious world. GAPYEONG, South Korea – The Rev.

Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who turned his Unification Church into a worldwide religious movement and befriended North Korean leaders as well as U.S. presidents, has died, church officials said Monday. He was 92. Moon died Monday at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul, two weeks after being hospitalized with pneumonia, Unification Church spokesman Ahn Ho-yeul told The Associated Press. Moon's wife and children were at his side, Ahn said. Moon, born in a town that is now in North Korea, founded his religious movement in Seoul in 1954 after surviving the Korean War. He preached new interpretations of lessons from the Bible. The church gained fame -- and notoriety -- in the 1970s and 1980s for holding mass weddings of thousands of followers, often from different countries, whom Moon matched up in a bid to build a multicultural religious world. The church was accused of using devious recruitment tactics and duping followers out of money; parents of followers in the United States and elsewhere expressed worries that their children were brainwashed into joining.

The church responded by saying that many other new religious movements faced similar accusations in their early stages. In later years, the church adopted a lower profile and focused on building a business empire that included the Washington Times newspaper, the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, Bridgeport University in Connecticut, as well as a hotel and a fledgling automaker in North Korea. It acquired a ski resort, a professional soccer team and other businesses in South Korea, and a seafood distribution firm that supplies sushi to Japanese restaurants across the U.S. The Unification Church claims millions of members worldwide, though church defectors and other critics say the figure is no more than 100,000. In 2009, Moon married 45,000 people in simultaneous ceremonies worldwide in his first large-scale mass wedding in years. Some were newlyweds and others reaffirmed past vows. He married an additional 7,000 couples in South Korea in February 2010. The ceremonies attracted media coverage but little of the controversy that dogged the church in earlier decades. Born in 1920 in what is today North Korea, Moon said he was 16 when Jesus Christ called upon him to complete his unfinished work.

While preaching the gospel in North Korea in the years after the country was divided into the communist-backed North and U.S.-allied South, Moon was imprisoned there in the late 1940s for allegedly spying for South Korea -- a charge Moon disputed. He quickly drew young followers with his conservative, family-oriented value system and unusual interpretation of the Bible. He conducted his first mass wedding in Seoul in the early 1960s. The "blessing ceremonies" grew in scale over the next two decades, with a 1982 wedding at Madison Square Garden in New York -- the first outside South Korea -- drawing thousands of participants. "International and intercultural marriages are the quickest way to bring about an ideal world of peace," Moon said in a 2009 autobiography. "People should marry across national and cultural boundaries with people from countries they consider to be their enemies so that the world of peace can come that much more quickly." Moon began rebuilding his relationship with North Korea in 1991, when he met the country's founder Kim Il Sung in the eastern industrial city of Hamhung.

Moon said in his autobiography that he asked Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, and that Kim responded that his atomic program was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to "kill my own people." "The two of us were able to communicate well about our shared hobbies of hunting and fishing. At one point, we each felt we had so much to say to the other that we just started talking like old friends meeting after a long separation," Moon wrote. He added that he heard Kim tell his son: "After I die, if there are things to discuss pertaining to North-South relations, you must always seek the advice of President Moon." When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea, drawing criticism from conservatives at home. Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong Il, sent roses, prized wild ginseng, Rolex watches and other gifts to Moon on his birthday each year. Kim Jong Il died late last year and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un. Moon sent a delegation to pay its respects during the mourning period for Kim Jong Il. Moon also developed good relationships with conservative American leaders, including former Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Still, he served 13 months at a U.S. federal prison in 1984-1985 for tax evasion. The church says the U.S. government persecuted Moon because of his growing influence and popularity with young people in the United States, his home for more than 30 years. As he grew older, Moon quietly handed over day-to-day control of his multibillion-dollar religious and business empire, which included dozens of companies ranging from hospitals and universities to a ballet troupe, to his children. His youngest son, the Rev. Hyung-jin Moon, was named the church's top religious director in April 2008. Other sons and daughters were put in charge of the church's business and charitable activities in South Korea and abroad. After ending a first marriage, Moon remarried a South Korean, Hak Ja Han Moon, in 1960. She often was at Moon's side for the mass weddings. The youngest son told The Associated Press in a February 2010 interview that Moon's offspring do not see themselves as his successors. "Our role is not inheriting that messianic role," he said. "Our role is more of the apostles, where we share ...

where we become the bridge between understanding what kind of lives (our) two parents have lived." Moon is survived by his second wife and 10 children. Advertisement Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon dies at 92 — RT News Tags Religion , South Korea Sun Myung Moon was born in 1920 in a town now located in North Korea. He claimed he was 16 when Jesus Christ called upon him to complete his unfinished work. During World War II, he moved to Japan, where he studied electrical engineering at Waseda University. Moon returned to the Soviet-occupied part of Korea after the war was over and began preaching his teachings. That soon landed him in jail, and he was given a five-year prison sentence at a labor camp in the newly-independent communist country of North Korea. However, the Korean War cut short his prison sentence as UN troops took control of the camp and set him free. Moon founded his religious movement, officially known as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of Christianity, in Seoul in 1954. In 1957 he published Divine Principle, which laid out the foundations of his religious movement and attained scripture status among his followers.

In 1971, Moon moved to the United States. In the following years, his church came into the media spotlight as Moon held mass weddings of thousands of followers. He also organized a number of mass gatherings. An estimated 1.2 million people gathered for a rally in the South Korean city of Yoido, while some 300,000 supporters flocked to the Washington Monument for another one of his public meetings. Later, Moon and the church transformed into a kind of business empire. This included the Washington Times newspaper, the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan and Bridgeport University in Connecticut. In South Korea, a ski resort, a professional soccer team and other businesses were acquired. In North Korea, the church owns a hotel and a fledgling automaker. Grooms and brides cheer while taking part in a mass wedding organized by Reverend Sun Myung Moon Unification Church, 16 February 2002, at an indoor Seoul stadium. (AFP Photo/Youn Jae-Wook) World peace movement or extremist religious sect? The leader of the Unification Church, just as the movement itself, proved to be a highly controversial figure.

Accusations were soon voiced that the church was bilking followers out of money, and that its adherents, many young people among them, were brainwashed into joining. The church only said in response that all religious movements faced these kinds of accusations in their early stages. Moon’s political ventures were also somewhat controversial. In 1974, as Richard Nixon faced increasing pressure to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Moon told his followers to pray and fast in support of the president under fire. This was at a time when most of the public, and even some of Nixon’s own appointees, had ducked him. A number of other right-wing politicians appeared to be on very good terms with Moon. He set up the News World Corporation, which was responsible for resurrecting the New York Tribune in 1976, and starting The Washington Times in 1982. Both of these papers were perceived to be right of center, and were often accused of the furthering the agenda of the Reagan administration. A House committee chaired by Democrat Donald Fraser also investigated links between the Unification Church and South Korean intelligence.

Moon’s increasingly warm relations with the Republicans who took control of the Oval Office in the 1980s did not help him avoid jail, however. In 1982, the religious leader was sentenced to 18 months in prison for improperly filling out tax returns. He was released after 13 months for good behavior. During his stay in prison, he found support in televangelists such as Jerry Fallwell, who accused the jury that sentenced him of prejudice. Nevertheless, his jail sentence did not hamper his relations with the neoconservatives in power. Both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher eventually extolled Moon and his media empire for helping bring down the Soviet Union. Moon’s closeness with fierce anti-communists the likes of Reagan did not prevent him from traveling to North Korea for a meeting with the country’s longterm leader Kim Il-Sung. Moon reported having a friendly chat about common hobbies and noted that the two had many similarities. Although Moon returned to South Korea in the 1990s, he continued to run his multibillion-dollar business empire, which by that time had extended its reach across dozens of countries.

Operating under the auspices of Moon and his subordinates were hospitals, charities, colleges, sports clubs, think tanks, TV channels and even ballet companies. And despite being one of the most prominent capitalists and anti-communists of the world, Moon continued to receive birthday gifts, including Rolex watches and pricey flowers, from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. In turn, Moon sent condolence delegations to the funerals of Kim Il-Sung in 1994, and Kim Jong-Il in 2011. In the late 2000s, Moon largely ceded control of his media empire and other ventures to his wife and sons. In 2009, Moon returned to his matchmaker roots by marrying some 45,000 people in ceremonies worldwide. He also joined up some 7,000 people the following year in South Korea. However, these ceremonies did not spark the controversy they had brought thirty years earlier. A number of other practices the church preaches have also generated controversy throughout the years.

Followers are reportedly told to swear blind devotion to the True Father – Moon – and the True Mother – Moon’s wife Hak Ja Han Moon, meaning that they have to give up their lives for their faith if necessary. Moon’s Russian foray In 1990 Moon visited the Soviet Union and met with President Mikhail Gorbachev, praising him for his political and economic reforms. Soon after the Communist empire was dissolved in 1991, branches of Moon's church started putting down roots in the post-Soviet area, most notably in Russia and Central Asia. At first, Russian authorities tolerated and even endorsed some of the church’s initiatives. In a number of regions, the movement supplied textbooks to schoolchildren and organized seminars for students. However, by the end of the 1990s the Moscow began to grow increasingly wary of the church’s meddling in the education process. Most of its branches were shut down for breaching the registration process, while the Russian government, just as many of its counterparts in Europe, classified the Unification Church as a sect. And just like in the United States, the churches were also accused of meddling in politics in an effort to cajole lawmakers to adopt favorable legislation.

Thousands of couples marry in mass wedding at 'Moonies' church in South Korea [Photo report] Thousands of couples marry in mass wedding at 'Moonies' church in South Korea [Photo report] By David Sim March 3, 2015 11:11 GMT About 4,000 couples from more than 50 countries exchanged wedding vows at a mass wedding. The couples were members of South Korea's controversial Unification Church, commonly known as 'Moonies' after their late founder and 'Messiah' the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Approximately 3,800 couples from around the world exchanged wedding vowsChung Sung-Jun/Getty Images Another 12,000 couples joined in via the internet, according to the church, located in Gapyeong, about 75km (50 miles) from Seoul. More than 20,000 church followers and guests gathered at the venue for the ceremony as well.

Thousands of couples take part in a mass wedding at the Family Federation for World Peace and UnificationChung Sung-Jun/Getty Images A bride looks for her groom at Cheongshim Peace World CentreKim Hong-Ji/Reuters A bride looks bemused as her groom takes a nap during their wedding ceremonyKim Hong-Ji/Reuters A bride naps during the mass wedding ceremonyKim Hong-Ji/Reuters Couples exchange rings in a mass wedding ceremonyChung Sung-Jun/Getty Images Newlyweds celebrate during a mass wedding ceremony at Cheongshim Peace World CentreChung Sung-Jun/Getty Images Just married: A couple look at each other as confetti falls at the end of the mass wedding ceremonyKim Hong-Ji/Reuters The church, officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, was founded in 1954 by Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Born in Jeongju, North Korea in 1920, Moon founded his religious movement in 1954. He said that when he was 15 Jesus appeared to him and demanded he set up God's kingdom on Earth.

Moon, who declared that he and his wife were messiahs in 1992, died in 2012 at the age of 93. Moon's wife Hak Ja Han Moon officiated at the mass wedding ceremony. She sprinkled "holy water" over a group of couples called onto the stage and declared them bound in wedlock. A couple check their translating machine before a mass wedding ceremonyKim Hong-Ji/Reuters A groom holds a portrait of his bride, who could not attend the mass wedding ceremonyKim Hong-Ji/Reuters A bride holds her husband's pictureChung Sung-Jun/Getty Images A bride weeps as she attends a mass wedding ceremony of the Unification ChurchKim Hong-Ji/Reuters The church has come under fire for its mass weddings because couples are matched by the church with future spouses whom some of them have just met before the ceremony, and in many cases, do not speak the same language. "We got to know each other in this past year and we came to the commitment of our relationship a few month ago and this is the most important day of our life to receive god blessing and marriage.

We are just very happy to be here," said 25-year-old Stefano Bianchini from Italy, who had just married his wife from the Netherlands. Twenty-year-old church follower, Michael Schroder from the United Kingdom, said he met his wife from Japan a few days ago for the first time. "Really excited. Everyone is so happy to finally get married and be with their spouses." Moon preferred brides and grooms from different racial backgrounds as he believed in the creation of a multicultural religious world. A bride takes photographs of her groom before the mass wedding ceremonyKim Hong-Ji/Reuters Couples have a toilet break during the mass wedding ceremonyKim Hong-Ji/Reuters Critics have vilified the group as heretical and a dangerous personality cult, questioning its murky finances and accusing it of indoctrinating followers. The church denies that, though Moon had been jailed for tax evasion. More about the Unification Church Return to Homeland | The Ideal of Woman | True Parents of Humankind Who is Reverend Moon? Nearly everyone has read or heard something about the founder of the Unification Church, Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Some media reports have portrayed Reverend Moon as a businessman or politician. Others have recognized him to be an extraordinarily dedicated religious leader.

Who is Reverend Moon? Our answer begins with an account of his upbringing, and an encounter he had with Jesus on a Korean mountainside. Sun Myung Moon was born on January 6, 1920, into a family of farmers that had tilled the land for centuries. As a boy he studied at a Confucian school and was a keen observer of the natural world. Around 1930, his parents became fervent Christians - Presbyterians, and the young Sun Myung Moon became a Sunday school teacher. At that time, Japan ruled Korea and only permitted practice of the Shinto religion. The religious intolerance of the militant Japanese was only a small part of the contempt they held for the Koreans, a race they believed to be inferior. The Korean people were subjected to forty years of humiliation and cruelty as part of Japan's Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. As a member of an oppressed race, Sun Myung Moon learned to hate injustice, whether among his own people or at the hands of the Japanese rulers. Korea is a land of fervent Christian faith. Today it is well known that Korea is home to the largest Protestant churches in the world.

When Reverend Billy Graham visited Korea, he was so impressed by the spiritual vitality of her churches that he predicted one day Korea would send missionaries to revive the West. Before World War II, the center of Christian activity was Pyongyang, which was called the "Jerusalem of the East." Among the spirit-filled churches were many with strong messianic expectations. These churches had received revelations that the Messiah would be born in Korea, and they were directed in various ways to prepare to receive him. Return to Top of Page Jesus Christ Appears At Easter time in 1935, Jesus appeared to the young Sun Myung Moon as he was praying in the Korean mountains. In that vision, Jesus asked him to continue the work which he had begun on earth nearly 2,000 years before. Jesus asked him to complete the task of establishing God's kingdom on earth and bringing His peace to humankind. The young Korean was stunned by this encounter, and especially by the request that had been made of him, and at first he refused. However, after deep reflection, meditation and prayer, he pledged his life to that overwhelming mission. After personally accepting Jesus' call, the young man set out to discover its very meaning.

If Jesus called him to complete his mission, it meant that Jesus' mission was incomplete. Was not salvation through the cross all that man needs? What was it that Jesus had left undone on earth? If sin is not completely solved, then what is the actual root of sin? Sun Myung Moon studied the Bible and many other religious teachings in order to unravel these mysteries of life and human history. During this time, he went into ever deeper communion with God and entered the vast battlefield of the spirit and flesh. Through denying his personal desires he overcame temptations of knowledge, wealth and physical pleasure. He came to understand God's own suffering and His longing to be reunited with His children. He learned the difficult steps that humankind would have to take in order to return to God and establish true peace on earth. By 1945, he had organized the teachings which came to be known as the Divine Principle, and he began his public ministry. The Divine Principle, the fundamental teaching of Reverend Moon and the Unification Church, is outlined in the following pages.

Return to Top of Page The Wilderness Course As World War II drew to a close, Reverend Moon, who had been jailed as a member of the Korean independence movement while studying at a Japanese university, returned to his native land. With the end of Japanese rule, he contacted other Christians and offered to work with them to build God's kingdom on the earth. American Christian missionaries had also heard of this young teacher, and disregarded him as a "country preacher." Korean ministers, jealous of the young man's appeal with their members, rejected him and accused him of espousing false teachings. Because the Christian churches failed to embrace him, Reverend Moon realized that he would have to walk the lonely path of a pioneer. Subsequently, he was called by God to travel to the communist north. There, he began to teach publicly, despite the dangers of doing so in a country where religion was not welcome. As a poor preacher who looked at the Bible in a new way, Reverend Moon was more vulnerable than the established churches, and, not surprisingly, was one of the first to come under attack from the local communists. Charged with disturbing the social order, in November 1946, the young minister was imprisoned and tortured.

The police thought him dead and threw his body into the prison yard. Some of his followers found him and carried him away to tend to his broken body. Miraculously, Reverend Moon survived and regained his strength. Undaunted, he began preaching in public again. In April 1948, he was arrested again and sentenced to five years of hard labor in Hungnam prison. He was among the first of the Christian ministers sent to the Soviet-style North Korean gulag. Hungnam was an extermination camp where prisoners were deliberately worked to death. Few lasted more than six months. Yet in that miserable concentration camp, Reverend Moon survived for nearly three years. Although he didn't speak a word of the Divine Principle, many of his fellow prisoners came to him for spiritual strength and became his disciples. On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army invaded the South in a lightning attempt to unify the entire peninsula by force. UN and American forces, under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, rescued the beleaguered South. One month after the capture of Seoul, UN forces reached the gates of Hungnam prison. In the meantime, the communist prison authorities had begun to execute the prisoners.

The prison camp was liberated the morning of Reverend Moon's scheduled execution. Despite his brutal prison camp experience, Reverend Moon did not immediately flee to the South. Instead, he returned to Pyongyang and spent forty days searching for the members of his scattered flock. He eventually found a few members and then traveled south on foot with two of them. In the port city of Pusan, Reverend Moon and one disciple built the first Unification Church from discarded army ration boxes. At that time, he told his small following that one day the message of the Divine Principle would be spread all over the world. He prophesied that people from all over the world would venerate that hillside. Reverend Moon's prophecy sounded unbelievable. Yet, it came true. Tens of thousands of people, including 7,000 ministers from America, have made a pilgrimage to the spot. How did this come about? Return to Top of Page The Beginning of the Unification Church On May 1, 1954, in Seoul, Reverend Moon founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (popularly called the Unification Church).

The church immediately attracted followers from a major Christian women's university, Ewha University, a school closely linked with the Korean government and with the mainline Protestant denominations. Because many students were joining the church, the school sent professors to investigate. When several professors also joined, instead of sincerely welcoming this new church, the school persecuted it. The university president ordered the professors and students either to leave the church or leave the school. Coincidentally, newspapers in Seoul suddenly began to print alarming stories about the Unification Church, about sex orgies and Reverend Moon being a North Korean agent. Reverend Moon was thrown in jail, to be released weeks later when no charges could be found. Again the following year he was thrown in jail on charges of evading the military draft, even though during the time in question he had been in Hungnam prison. After several months confinement-and sensational media coverage-- the charges were dropped. His release received scant notice in the press. Thus began the pattern of collusion between religious leaders, government and the media to suppress Reverend Moon and his church. Return to Top of Page The Internal Mission: Complete Salvation Amidst this tribulation, Reverend Moon nurtured a growing community of faithful disciples.

It was known as the weeping church. By 1957, churches were established in thirty Korean cities and towns. In 1958, the first missionary went to neighboring Japan; in 1959, the first missionaries arrived in America. This family of disciples was the foundation upon which the holy wedding, the marriage of the Lamb foretold in the Book of Revelation, could take place. On March 16, 1960, Reverend Moon was blessed in holy marriage to Hak Ja Han. This marked the beginning of the restoration of humankind back into God's lineage. By the power of God and sacrificial love, Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han established the position of True Parents. They are the first couple to have the complete blessing of God, and to be able to bring forth children with no original sin. Hak Ja Han and her mother, a devout Christian, had also fled south during the Korean War. They soon thereafter joined the Unification Church. At the age of seventeen, Miss Han dedicated herself to the mission of bride of the Messiah. She has, with unwavering courage and dignity, stood by her husband through every hardship.

All people, whether previously married or single, can receive the blessing of God upon their marriages through Reverend and Mrs. Moon standing as the True Parents. The number of couples who have received this blessing has grown, from 36 in 1960, to 8,000 in 1982, to 30,000 in 1992, and most recently, to 360,000 in 1995. The large weddings represent the unity of humankind by joining together men and women of different races and nationalities. Reverend Moon teaches that through the blessing, fallen men and women can be engrafted into the true lineage of God. Consequently, for fallen humanity, which traces its roots to the false lineage created by Adam and Eve, the blessing is the greatest hope. The couples blessed by Reverend and Mrs. Moon accept God's call to establish ideal, God-centered families. The establishment of ideal families is the starting point for the building of a peaceful world. Return to Top of Page Ministry in America In 1971, God directed Reverend Moon to expand his ministry to the world level by coming to the United States.

He saw all that was expressed gratitude for its role in liberating his good in America and homeland. But he also knew that God expected much more from this land that had been so richly blessed. America, which embraces all peoples, races and religions, represents the world. What happens in America has global repercussions. It was clear to Reverend Moon that America had drifted from its original ideals. Therefore, he conducted a "Day of Hope" speaking tour throughout America in the early 1970s with the purpose of reviving traditional Judeo-Christian values. In 1974, he spoke to an over flow crowd in New York's Madison Square Garden. He then preached in all fifty states, hosting banquets for thousands of society's leaders and maintaining an exhausting schedule. During this time, thousands of young people accepted his message and dedicated themselves to God's providence. Reverend Moon was invited to the White House, where he met with President Richard Nixon. On two occasions, he addressed members of the US Congress, both in the House and Senate.

In 1975, he continued his Day of Hope festivals in Japan and Korea, concluding with a rally at Yoido Island near Seoul which was attended by 1.2 million people. Also in 1975, Reverend Moon sent missionaries to 120 countries, making the Unification Church a worldwide faith. During the United States' bicentennial in 1976, Reverend Moon spoke to an enthusiastic crowd in Yankee Stadium. Shortly thereafter, he organized the greatest religious rally ever assembled in Washington, D.C. Over 300,000 people of all creeds and colors came to hear him speak at the "God Bless America Festival." At this historic rally, Reverend Moon called upon America to fulfill its blessing as one nation under God, and to create "one world under God." Return to Top of Page Why The Persecution? Reverend Moon's appeal for a true Christian renewal of America was initially welcomed. However, this receptivity proved shallow when, in 1974, he urged Americans through rallies and newspaper statements to forgive the beleaguered Richard Nixon at the time of the Watergate scandal.

Any public relations strategist would have advised him against such action, which called on Americans to "forgive, love and unite." Virtually no one at the time was willing to side with a president on the verge of impeachment, but Reverend Moon foresaw the terrible consequences of undercutting the American presidency. His appeal was met with scorn. He became an easy target for the now hostile media. The fair and objective articles of the past were replaced by ones which portrayed Reverend Moon and his church in the worst possible light. All sorts of allegations from Korea were dug up. In this atmosphere of hysteria, the enthusiasm and idealism of his young followers was reinterpreted as brainwashing. Reverend Moon was portrayed as a hypnotist and an agent of a foreign government. Religious and racial bigotry and persecution, a phenomenon in the United States as old as the country itself, showed its ugly face. Even though America was founded for the sake of establishing religious freedom, not every American has been willing to extend that freedom to others. Quakers were tried and hanged in New England and Baptists were run out of Massachusetts. The founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, was murdered in Illinois and his followers were forced into the desert.

Jews and Catholics were looked upon as tools of foreign powers engaged in international conspiracies. Regrettably, religious intolerance is still with us today. The Unification Church has borne the brunt of it in America over the last two decades. Return to Top of Page Trial and Error The United States government launched a plethora of official investigations of Reverend Moon involving nearly twenty federal agencies. Hearings were conducted on Capitol Hill to warn of the dangers of new religious movements. Rep. Donald Fraser led a Congressional investigation of alleged ties between the Unification Church and the Korean CIA. The multi-million dollar effort came up with nothing of substance. Meanwhile, a five-year IRS investigation finally produced a politically-crafted indictment against Reverend Moon. This indictment, handed down in 1981, charged him with evading income taxes nearly a decade earlier, as well as conspiracy to avoid those taxes. The government's purpose, however, was to force Reverend Moon to leave America. When the indictment was handed down, Reverend Moon was in Korea. His lawyers recommended that he not come back to America, since there is no extradition treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea. However, he did not follow their advice.

He was, after all, a man of God, not a criminal fleeing the law. He immediately returned to the United States. He told his counsel: "I will not abandon my mission in America. That I will never do." Upon arriving in New York for the Federal District Court arraignment he spoke only one sentence: "Your Honor, I am not guilty." The outcome of the trial was a foregone conclusion. He was convicted and sentenced to spend eighteen months in a federal prison. When, despite forty amicus briefs from mainline Christian leaders, legal associations, civil liberty groups and state governments, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, he prepared to go to jail. The US Justice Department wanted to negotiate with Reverend Moon's attorneys. On the condition that Reverend Moon depart for Korea and never come back to the United States, they said, the government would waive his prison sentence. He flatly refused. His comment was, "It must be God's will that I go to prison. There must be a providential reason why I must go this way." Return to Top of Page Prison Life Without any bitterness, Reverend Moon served time in Danbury Federal Prison.

Initially he was received coldly by the other inmates, most of whom had heard about him through newspaper articles or television reports. In only a few weeks' time, however, the other prisoners began to accept this Korean religious leader, not because he preached to them, which was forbidden by prison rules, but because he took the most unwanted jobs and worked with them cheerfully. His positive attitude toward life in prison began to command respect and even admiration from the other prisoners. Some of them began to come to him for counseling and advice. Some of the inmates openly defended him. One of them, Ed Farmer, wrote a letter about his experiences with Reverend Moon in Danbury. I was fortunate. I only had to be in Danbury for three months. I knew I was going, and I knew Reverend Moon was there. They had it in the paper every other day. I was curious. As it turned out, I was in the cubicle right next to Reverend Moon's, five feet away. Reverend Moon has a very good sense of humor. It's hard for me to think of a person as being mean or brainwashing people with the sense of humor he has. He truly loves people. I mean, he likes being with them.

He likes being kidded, he likes being teased. I never saw a mean act on his part. He never asked for special treatment. He mopped floors, cleaned tables, and he helped other people when he was finished with his job. When you'd be down in spirit, he'd come along, pat you on the back, and smile and laugh. He doesn't put on a face today, or put on generosity or kindness today and then not tomorrow. Reverend Moon is Reverend Moon, a very steady, ongoing force. I think that man could be happy wherever he went. He carries his religion with him. He doesn't need a book. Everyone feels it. It's very evident. Reverend Moon has never complained about what the government did to him. He has never accused the government of a witch-hunt, mainly I think because he refuses to dignify it. I find it almost impossible to believe the stories that they spread about him, after having met him. That man would not do those things, it's impossible. My own personal belief is that it was a witch-hunt. In the meantime, protests were being made all around the nation over the injustice Reverend Moon was suffering.

Many Christian leaders who never knew or cared about him began to realize that the government had made a serious assault on religious freedom. Altogether, Christians and non-religious groups representing over 160 million Americans came to his legal defense. A Senate subcommittee, chaired by Senator Orrin Hatch, conducted its own investigation into Reverend Moon's tax case and published its findings in a report which concluded: We accused a newcomer to our shores of criminal and intentional wrongdoing for conduct commonly engaged in by a large percentage of our own religious leaders, namely, the holding of church funds in bank accounts in their own names. Catholic priests do it. Baptist ministers do it, and so did Sun Myung Moon. No matter how we view it, it remains a fact that we charged a non-English-speaking alien with criminal tax evasion on the first tax returns he filed in this country. It appears that we didn't give him a fair chance to understand our laws. We didn't seek a civil penalty as an initial means of redress. We didn't give him the benefit of any doubt.

Rather, we took a novel theory of tax liability of less than $10,000 and turned it into a guilty verdict and eighteen months in a federal prison. I do feel strongly, after my subcommittee has carefully and objectively reviewed this [Reverend Moon's tax] case from both sides, that injustice rather than justice has been served. The Moon case sends a strong signal that if one's views are unpopular enough, this country will find a way not to tolerate, but to convict. I don't believe that you or I or anyone else, no matter how innocent, could realistically prevail against the combined forces of our Justice Department and judicial branch in a case such as Reverend Moon's. On August 20, 1985, Reverend Moon was freed after completing thirteen months of incarceration. Upon his release, major Christian and civil rights leaders, including Reverend Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority and Reverend Joseph Lowry of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, held a press conference to decry the persecution and imprisonment of Reverend Moon and to welcome him back. Return to Top of Page Return to Homeland By 1988, Reverend and Mrs. Moon had completed the forty-year wilderness course.

With myriad followers of all races, nations and religions, the Unification Church was firmly established and could be used by God as the instrument of world salvation. Reverend Moon then began the next phase of his mission. In 1990, Reverend Moon organized a major meeting of government and media in Moscow. This fulfilled a pledge he had made in 1976 that one day he would organize a "great rally for God in Moscow." During this conference, on their thirtieth wedding anniversary, Reverend and Mrs. Moon met with President Mikhail Gorbachev. Through several interviews, televised and in print, they gave a message of hope to the Soviet people, urging them to turn toward God. A crucial step for the establishment of world peace is the reunification of North and South Korea. Risking his life, Reverend Moon traveled to North Korea in December 1991, and met with President Kim Il Sung, under whose regime he had been tortured and sent to a labor camp. His purpose was to seek ways to bridge the gap between the two countries. The North Korean ruler, who had suppressed religion for forty years, completely welcomed Reverend and Mrs. Moon.

On a tearful yet joyful day, Reverend Moon returned to his hometown, to the house of his birth. He put flowers on the graves of his parents, who had died during his absence. He was welcomed with tears of joy by his surviving relatives. Return to Top of Page The Ideal of Woman In 1992, Reverend and Mrs. Moon inaugurated the Women's Federation for World Peace. The Divine Principle teaches that the unity of brothers (Cain and Abel) restores the mother's position, who then brings the family back to God. Thus the end of the Cold War offers the opportunity to heal the world based upon a new women's movement. On April 10, Mrs. Moon as international president of the Federation initiated this movement at a rally of 150,000 in Seoul. In the months that followed, she spoke to more than one million people in over 120 cities and twelve nations. The Women's Federation brings women together to take action for the moral education and healing of our families and society. By nurturing the pure root of true love between husband and wife, the women of the world will bring harmony and blessing to their families.

This in turn will lead to societies, nations and a world of peace. Return to Top of Page True Parents On August 24, 1992, Reverend Moon completed his forty-year wilderness course. At a gathering of 1,000 world leaders at the World Culture and Sports Festival, Reverend Moon declared that he and his wife are the Messiah and True Parents of all humanity. This marks the beginning of the Completed Testament Age. Mrs.. Moon has given a fitting description of the meaning of the Messiah and the True Parents. Ladies and Gentlemen, what is the Messiah? The Messiah is the True Parents of humankind. God's original plan was to establish perfected Adam and Eve as the true ancestors of humanity. Satan, however, invaded this ideal, and God, ever since, has been working toward the emergence of ideal True Parents through which all humankind can be restored. As true fathers and true mothers ourselves, we must vanquish Satan, liberate humanity and build the kingdom of Heaven on earth. As God's sons and daughters we must inherit God's love, life and lineage. Moreover, we must also inherit True Parents' love, life and lineage.

Then we will have achieved unity between heaven and earth, vertical and horizontal, and mind and body. This will be the starting point for the eternal world of peace. The following year saw an even greater activism on the part of Mrs. Moon, as she delivered the address, "True Parent's and the Completed Testament Age" in 44 cities in America, 27 cities in Japan, on 40 university campuses in Korea, and 41 nations around the world. This monumental achievement included such notable venues as Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the United Nations in New York City, the Kremlin, and congressional buildings in Japan, Korea, and Canada. With absolute faith, hope and love, Reverend Moon has dedicated himself to the call of Jesus. Through God's power and Principle, despite persecution, he has accomplished the work which Jesus called him to do. First, after a long search, he discovered the teachings of the Divine Principle: God's ideal for humanity, the root of evil, and the formula to restore the ideal. Next, he tried to explain his insights to the established Christian churches, but when they rejected him, he began the lonely and difficult path of a prophet in the wilderness.

For over forty years, amidst persecution and ridicule, he established a church reaching out to people across the globe. Tens of thousands of Unificationist families, sanctified by God's blessing, are practicing a quality of love which transcends all racial and national barriers. Organizations founded by Reverend Moon in education, the arts, science, communications and international affairs show how every aspect of human life can be centered on God's true love. Reverend Moon has emerged on the world stage to demonstrate God's true heart by loving and embracing his enemies, the leaders of North Korea and the Soviet Union, who once had imprisoned him and sought to kill him. He has brought together the leaders of warring religions. True love has now triumphed over evil. All the satanic barriers have been broken down. The Completed Testament Age has dawned. God's true love, which was lost at the fall of man, has made its triumphant reappearance in the world. This love is the power of new life for all individuals, marriages and families the world over. We pray that this brief testimony to the providence of God will inspire the reader to study further, and to make a personal commitment to building the kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Question: Sun Myung Moon is known as the founder of what movement?
Answer: Unification Church