Rev. Moon - self described messiah

By Kim Rahn

Unification Church founder Rev. Moon Sun-myung was born to a Presbyterian Christian family in 1920 in Jeongju, North Pyeongan Province, currently in North Korea, the second son of eight children.

Moon claimed that when he was aged 16 he was visited by Jesus Christ who told him to complete work left unfinished following crucifixion.

Moon majored in electrical science at Waseda University in Japan, and preached at services after the end of World War II and before the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War.

In 1954, Moon founded the Unification Church at a shabby house in Seoul. But the new religion grew rapidly _ overseas missionary work began in 1958 in Japan and in the early 1970s in the United States. The church currently has some 3 million followers in 194 countries.

While leading the church, he served six jail terms for various charges _ under the communist regime in North Korean territory after liberation of the Korean peninsula from Japanese colonial rule, during the Syngman Rhee regime and in the United States where he was convicted of tax fraud in 1982 and spent 18 months in a federal prison.

In July 2008, he faced a life-threatening moment when a chopper carrying him made an emergency landing on a mountain in Gyeonggi Province.

The Unification Church, founded as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, now also known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, has been accused of being heretical because Moon proclaimed himself as a messiah and claimed that Christ will not return in person but that he and his family will complete all messianic business. He had his followers refer to him and his wife Han Hak-ja as their “True Parents.”

Moon and Han married in 1960 and had seven sons and six daughters. Three of their sons already died.

His church is famous for conducting “mass weddings,” which started in 1961 with 36 couples participating in a public ceremony. In August 1992, Moon married 30,000 couples, among them Koreans and foreigners, at the Olympic main stadium in southeastern Seoul.

Dedicated to unification, Moon had an ongoing relationship with the regime in North Korea. His first visit to the Stalinist state took place in 1991 when he held talks with then-leader Kim Il-sung, to discuss various businesses. He also met his sister who lived in the North.

The Unification Church arranged inter-Korean cultural exchanges such as student seminars and performances of children’s choirs in the two nation states on the peninsula.

Last December when then-leader Kim Jong-il died, the church sent flowers in condolence.

Moon was also engaged in activities for “world peace.” He founded the Universal Peace Federation in 2005 and Abel U.N., a peace organization which he hoped would replace the United Nations, in 2010.

In 1990 he visited Moscow and talked about peace with the Soviet Union’s then-President Mikhail Gorbachev. He claimed in a memoir that he urged Gorbachev to form diplomatic ties with Korea at that time.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. in 2001, the church invited leaders of diverse religions across the world to Jerusalem for peace marches.

Since 2003, the Unification Church has held the Peace Cup football championship.