Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, died of complications from pneumonia at a hospital near Seoul Monday, church officials said. He was 92.
Moon died at 1:54 a.m. at the CheongShim International Medical Center, a hospital on the church's estate in Gapyeong, about 60 kilometers east of Seoul, said the officials.
Moon was first admitted to an intensive-care unit at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital in southern Seoul on Aug. 14 after suffering from a cold and pneumonia and developing complications. He was then moved to the CheongShim center on Aug. 31 following a diagnosis from his doctors that the illness is "irreversible."
Born in Jeongju, North Pyeongan Province of North Korea, in 1920, Moon founded the Unification Church in 1954, one year after the Korean War ended. He began preaching his new interpretations of lessons from the Bible in Japan in 1957 and moved to the United States in 1972.
The church, officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, now claims some 3 million followers in 194 countries around the world.
It gained fame for conducting mass weddings among followers with one wedding ceremony held at Seoul's Jamsil Stadium in 1992 involving 30,000 couples. He married an additional 7,000 couples in South Korea in February 2010.
But the growth of the church was not smooth enough.
Moon was jailed six times as Korea underwent a turbulent modern history and some critics have labeled the group as heretical because it considers Moon as a messiah.
In December 1991, Moon traveled to North Korea to meet the communist country's founder Kim Il-sung for discussions on inter-Korean economic cooperation projects and reunions of separated families. In the same year, the Sunday Times of Britain selected Moon as one of the "1,000 Makers of the 20th Century" along with South Korea's first president Syngman Rhee and the North's Kim Il-sung. When Kim Il-sung died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea.
Despite various controversies, the church has built vast business and educational empires all around the world, including 10 in South Korea alone, which include a ski resort and a professional soccer team.
The church also has news media outlets such as Segye Times of South Korea, The Washington Times and UPI news agency in the U.S. under its wing, in addition to an automaker in North Korea and a hotel and a university in the U.S.
Rev. Hyung Jin Moon, the youngest of Moon's seven sons, took over the leadership of the church in 2008 at the age of 28.