Unification Church
In 1975, the Unification Church gathered 1.2 million people at Yeouido, South Korea, in one of the largest peaceful gatherings in history.
Officially the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the church is a new religious movement. Its members are known as Unificationists. Today it has a presence in approximately 100 countries.
Who stood at the center of those crowds? What did the people who followed him believe about the world, about marriage, and about him? How did a religious movement become entangled with newspapers, trade, and politics? And why have courts and prosecutors recently moved against its leaders? The answers begin in a Korea that was not yet divided.
Sun Myung Moon was born Mun Yong-myeong on the 25th of February 1920 in Sangsa-ri, in North P'yŏng'an Province, now part of North Korea. Korea was then under Japanese rule, and his birthday was recorded as the 6th of January by the traditional lunar calendar. Around 1930, his family, who had followed Confucian traditions, converted to Christianity and joined a Presbyterian church. He later taught Sunday school there.
In 1945, Moon attended the Israel Monastery, known as the Israel Jesus Church, near Seoul, together with his wife. When World War II ended Japanese rule that same year, he began to preach. In 1946 he traveled alone to Pyongyang in Communist-ruled North Korea. He was arrested on allegations of spying for South Korea and sentenced to five years in the Hŭngnam labor camp.
On the 1st of May 1954, in Seoul, Moon gave his followers their official name: the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, or HSA-UWC. He had not originally intended to create a separate denomination. By the end of 1955 the group had 30 centers across South Korea. That same year it founded the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, known as CARP. The scholar J. Isamu Yamamoto wrote that CARP was at times subtle about its tie to the church, though the link was always strong, since both exist to spread Moon's teachings.
Most members lived in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and other East Asian nations. Missionaries also went to Europe. They entered Czechoslovakia in 1968 and stayed underground until the 1990s. Missionary work in South America began in the 1970s.
In 1971, Moon moved to the United States, though he remained a citizen of the Republic of Korea. In 1974 he spoke at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Two speeches at Yankee Stadium followed in 1976. Near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., he spoke on "God's Hope for America" to 300,000 people. American members of the 1970s became known for raising money for church projects.
That same year, 1974, some American media outlets began calling members Moonies. The word was first received neutrally. During the 1980s and 1990s, the church in the United States ran an extensive public relations campaign against its use. Many members consider the word derogatory. Yet David Kim, president of the Unification Theological Seminary, and Bo Hi Pak, Moon's aide, have both used it, and so did Moon himself. The informal name Unification Church stuck with the public, and by 2018 the term Unification Movement was also widely used.
Hak Ja Han, Moon's wife, addressed Russia in a radio broadcast from the State Kremlin Palace as the movement expanded into former communist nations in the 1990s. About 500 Russian students were sent to the United States for 40-day workshops.
Moon said that Jesus appeared to him on a mountainside on Easter Sunday in 1935. According to his account, Jesus asked him to continue the work that the "tragedy" of the crucifixion had cut short. The teaching that followed, he said, was revealed to him over nine years.
The book that records it took shape slowly. Wolli Wonbon was first published in 1945, but its earliest manuscript was lost in North Korea during the Korean War. A second, expanded version, Wonli Hesol, or Explanation of the Divine Principle, appeared in 1957. The church's main theological textbook, Exposition of the Divine Principle, was co-written by Moon and an early disciple, Hyo Won'eu, and first published in 1966. An English translation titled Divine Principle followed in 1973. Believers hold it to be holy scripture, read beside the Old and New Testaments as a text meant to interpret and fulfill them.
The Divine Principle follows the format of systematic theology, in three parts: creation, the fall, and restoration. In the principle of creation, God made the world in his own image, so reality is built from paired opposites. Sung-sang is the inner, invisible side of creation, and hyung-sang is the outer, visible side. They mirror soul and body. Yin and yang mirror femininity and masculinity. The scholars David Václavík and Dušan Lužný describe God's energy as drawing things into relationships of giving and receiving, with love as the goal.
God's plan had three blessings. The first concerned man's nature, made in God's image. The second was to be fulfilled through Adam and Eve, who were meant to form a pure and loving family but failed. The third made man a mediator between God and nature, called to master nature and so create the kingdom of heaven.
The fall, in this telling, came before Adam and Eve reached completion. The give-and-take relationship was reversed when Eve established a sexual relationship with Satan. The result was a world "with Satan at the center, and all men have become children of Satan." Evil natures, the teaching says, pass down through families and build an evil world.
Restoration is the church's lens on all of history. God, it teaches, has repeatedly tried to end the sinful world and restore the good one. With Noah, God destroyed the world by flood, yet Noah's second-born son, Ham, sinned again. Jesus came to establish a perfect family, but he was crucified before he could.
The church holds that the present age is the Last Days, the period of the Second Coming. This time Christ will succeed, as a man in the flesh who marries a bride and becomes the True Parents of all humankind. The Divine Principle says that day is at hand in the person of Sun Myung Moon. Followers honor Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, as True Father and True Mother. They regard Moon as a person separate from Jesus, sent to continue and complete his work.
The church links a person's fate after death to how well their work in life matches its teachings. Moon's followers also believe in apocatastasis, the idea that everyone will eventually receive salvation. A teaching so focused on bloodline needed a rite that could change it. The church's answer was marriage.
In 1961-36 couples took part in the first Blessing ceremony, held in Seoul by Moon and his new wife shortly after their own marriage in 1960. All the couples were church members. Moon matched every couple except 12, who had already been married to each other before joining.
This was Moon's second marriage. In 1945 he had married Sun Kil Choi. They had a son in 1946 and divorced in 1954.
The Blessing rests on a belief about lineage. Members hold that through the ceremony a couple leaves the line of sinful humanity and joins God's sinless lineage. Later ceremonies grew much larger but kept the same pattern. In 1982, the first large-scale Blessing outside Korea took place in Madison Square Garden in New York City, with 2,000 couples. In 1988, Moon matched 2,500 Korean members with Japanese members for a ceremony in Korea, partly to promote unity between the two nations.
The press often labeled these events mass weddings. In most cases the Blessing is not a legal wedding. Engaged couples are later married under the laws of their own countries. Reporting on a 1997 ceremony for 28,000 couples, The New York Times called it a "marriage affirmation ceremony" and added: "The real weddings were held later in separate legal ceremonies." Moon's practice of matching couples was very unusual in both Christian tradition and modern Western culture, and it drew attention and controversy.
The scholar Mary Farrell Bednarowski says marriage is "really the only sacrament" in the Unification movement. Unificationists therefore treat singleness as preparation for marriage rather than a state to be sought. Pre-marital celibacy and marital faithfulness are emphasized, and some adherents are taught to abstain from intimacy for a set time after the wedding. The church does not give its marriage blessing to same-sex couples. Moon stressed the similarity between Unification views of sexuality and evangelical Christianity.
Since 2001, couples Blessed by Moon have been able to arrange their own children's marriages without his direct guidance. Some members are also married to non-members.
In 1976 and 1977, the church put nearly a million dollars into the United States seafood industry, after Moon ordered an expansion into what he called "the oceanic providence." In a 1980 speech titled "The Way of Tuna," he described building boats, catching and processing fish, and running a distribution network. He told listeners: "This is not just on the drawing board; I have already done it." He declared himself the "king of the ocean."
Moon also proposed a way around the newly imposed 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. Members from America and Japan could marry, he said, so that the Japanese partners could become American citizens and work in fishing and distribution. He claimed that Gloucester was almost a Moonie town.
In 1976, members also founded News World Communications, an international news media company. Its first two newspapers were The News World, later renamed the New York City Tribune, and the Spanish-language Noticias del Mundo. Both were published in New York until the early 1990s. In 1982, The New York Times described News World as the newspaper unit of the church. Moon's son, Hyun Jin Moon, is its chairman of the board.
The company's holdings spread across the globe. It owns United Press International, The Segye Ilbo in South Korea, The Sekai Nippo in Japan, the Zambezi Times in South Africa, and The Middle East Times in Egypt. It also owns The World and I and Tiempos del Mundo in Latin America. Until 2008 it published the newsmagazine Insight on the News. Until 2010 it owned The Washington Times. On the 2nd of November 2010, Moon and a group of former Times editors bought the paper from News World.
Bo Hi Pak, called Moon's right-hand man, was the Times founding president. According to The Washington Post, Moon created the paper to fight communism and to offer a conservative alternative to what he saw as the liberal bias of The Washington Post. At the paper's 20th anniversary party in 2002, Moon said: "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."
In the 1980s and 1990s, the church's businesses expanded greatly and met with significant success. The church grew wealthy even as its membership declined. In 1991, Moon told members to return to their hometowns for apostolic work. Massimo Introvigne, who has studied new religious movements, read this as a sign that full-time membership was no longer considered crucial.
On the 1st of May 1994, the 40th anniversary of the founding, Moon declared the era of the HSA-UWC over. He inaugurated the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. It would include HSA-UWC members and members of other religious groups working toward common goals, especially sexual morality and reconciliation among people of different religions, nations, and races. The new federation co-sponsored Blessing ceremonies in which thousands of couples from other churches and religions received the marriage blessing once given only to HSA-UWC members.
That same year, The New York Times called the movement "a theocratic powerhouse that is pouring foreign fortunes into conservative causes in the United States."
In the 1940s, Moon cooperated with Communist Party members in support of the Korean independence movement against Imperial Japan. After the Korean War of 1950-1953, he became an outspoken anti-communist. He viewed the Cold War as the final conflict between God and Satan, with divided Korea as its front line.
Soon after its founding, the movement began supporting anti-communist groups. They included the World League for Freedom and Democracy, founded in Taipei in 1966 by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Korean Culture and Freedom Foundation, which also sponsored Radio Free Asia. The Japanese millionaire Ryōichi Sasakawa helped fund these efforts. Critics in the mainstream and alternative press warned that the activism could lead to World War III.
In 1972, Moon made a prediction based on the Divine Principle. Communism, which began in 1917, would peak after roughly 60 years, decline after 1978, and be "altogether ruined" in its 70th year. In 1973 he called for an "automatic theocracy" to replace communism. Critics have accused him of advocating a worldwide theocracy, though the charge rests on a poorly translated speech.
In 1980, members founded CAUSA International, an anti-communist educational group based in New York City. By the 1980s it was active in 21 countries. It sponsored conferences for evangelical Christian leaders, Senate staffers, and conservative activists. In 1986 it sponsored the documentary Nicaragua Was Our Home, about the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua. Its producer, church member Lee Shapiro, later died in Afghanistan while filming with anti-Soviet forces during the Soviet-Afghan War. CAUSA also directly assisted the Central Intelligence Agency in supplying the Contras and paid for flights by rebel leaders. Its aid grew after Congress cut off CIA funding. In 1984 the HSA-UWC founded the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, a think tank that funds conservative-oriented research and seminars.
In April 1990, Moon visited the Soviet Union and met President Mikhail Gorbachev. Five years later, at an event in the Tokyo Dome, Hak Ja Han credited her husband with bringing about the fall of communism. The former United States president George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, also spoke there. Bush said he wished he had done more to strengthen the American family.
Moon's attention to Korea never faded. In 1991 he met North Korean president Kim Il Sung to discuss peace on the peninsula, as well as international relations and tourism. In 1992, Kim gave his first and only interview to the Western news media to Josette Sheeran of The Washington Times. In 1994, Moon was invited to Kim's funeral despite the lack of diplomatic relations between North and South Korea.
Church-linked businesses began operating in North Korea in 1998, with the approval of the South Korean government. In 2000 the Tongil Group founded Pyeonghwa Motors in the North Korean port of Nampo. In 2003, Korean members started a political party named The Party for God, Peace, Unification and Home. In 2010, Moon's son Hyung Jin Moon was hosted in Pyongyang by Kim Yong-nam and donated 600 tons of flour to the children of Jeongju, Moon's birthplace. In 2012, Moon was posthumously awarded North Korea's National Reunification Prize.
The movement's reach into politics extended further. In 2021, Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe gave speeches at the Rally of Hope, hosted by an affiliate of the church. Five ministers of the Japanese Cabinet were reported to have ties to it.
In 1976, the American Jewish Committee released a report by Rabbi A. James Rudin on the Divine Principle. It said the text contained "pejorative language, stereotyped imagery, and accusations of collective sin and guilt." At a news conference with Catholic and Protestant representatives, panelists counted over 125 anti-Jewish references. The Divine Principle teaches that John the Baptist was tasked from birth with leading the Jewish people to Jesus and failed in that mission.
In 1977, the HSA-UWC issued a rebuttal. It called the report neither comprehensive nor reconciliatory, and it answered 17 specific allegations. In 1984, Mose Durst, a convert from Judaism who then led the American church, called the Jewish community's response "hateful." Rudin said that was unfair. Durst wrote in his autobiography that the relationship with the Jewish community had been the most painful to him personally. In 1989 church leaders Peter Ross and Andrew Wilson issued guidelines for relations with Jews. In 2008, a standard Jewish reference work called the resulting statements and guidelines excellent.
With other Christians the church had a rougher road. In their book The Kingdom of the Cults, first published in 1965, Walter Ralston Martin and Ravi K. Zacharias took issue with the Divine Principle on the nature of Jesus, his virgin birth, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. In 1974, Moon founded the Unification Theological Seminary in Barrytown, New York, partly to improve relations with other churches. It hired professors from other denominations, including a Methodist minister, a Presbyterian, a Roman Catholic priest, and a rabbi.
In the 1980s, the church sent thousands of American ministers on trips to Japan and South Korea to learn its teachings. At least one was dismissed by his congregation for going. In 1994 the church came under criticism from the Russian Orthodox Church, and in 1997 the Russian government passed a law requiring non-Russian religions to register their congregations. In 1995 the Women's Federation for World Peace, founded in 1992 by Han, indirectly helped Baptist Liberty University through a financial crisis.
On the 16th of October 2000, the FFWPU co-sponsored the Million Family March in Washington, D.C., with the Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan, its leader, was the main speaker. The date was the fifth anniversary of Farrakhan's Million Man March. Moon was criticized for backing it, including by some members of his own church. In 2007 the Moons sent greetings to Farrakhan while he recovered from cancer. In his 2009 autobiography, Moon praised Islam and hoped for more understanding between religious communities. In 2011 church representatives joined a seminar in Taiwan held by the Muslim World League to encourage interfaith dialogue and discourage terrorism.
In 2010, the church built a large interfaith temple in Seoul. In 2012, the affiliated Universal Peace Federation held an interfaith program in the United Nations General Assembly hall for representatives of 12 religions and confessions.
The Divine Principle also calls for science and religion to be united in one undertaking. In the 1970s and 1980s, the movement sponsored the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences. The first, in 1972, had 20 participants. The largest, in Seoul in 1982, drew 808 people from over 100 countries. Nobel laureates John Eccles, who chaired the 1976 conference, and Eugene Wigner took part in one or more. American media suggested the conferences were also meant to improve the church's controversial public image.
Science and the church collided again in 2002 with Icons of Evolution, a popular book critical of teaching evolution. Its author, member Jonathan Wells, graduated from the Unification Theological Seminary and has advocated intelligent design with the Discovery Institute.
In 1976, Neil Albert Salonen, president of the American church, met Senator Bob Dole to defend the movement against its critics, including the parents of some members. During the 1970s the church, with other new religious movements, became a target of the anti-cult movement. Activists accused it of having "brainwashed" its members.
Scholars looked closer. In the early 1960s, John Lofland lived with missionary Young Oon Kim and a small group of American members. He found that most of their efforts were ineffective. Most people who joined did so because of personal relationships, often family ones. He published his findings in 1964 as a doctoral thesis and in 1966 as the book Doomsday Cult.
In 1977, Frederick Sontag, a philosophy professor at Pomona College and a minister in the United Church of Christ, spent 10 months visiting members in North America, Europe, and Asia. He also interviewed Moon at his home in New York State. He compared the movement with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and said of its theology: "They raise some incredibly interesting issues." In 1984, Eileen Barker published The Making of a Moonie, based on a seven-year study of members in the United Kingdom and the United States. It won a Distinguished Book Award in 1985, and in 2006 Laurence Iannaccone of George Mason University called it "one of the most comprehensive and influential studies" of conversion to new religious movements. In 1998, the sociologist Irving Louis Horowitz questioned the relationship between the church and the scholars it paid for research.
The courts weighed in too. In 1981, a New York appellate court ruled that the church was not entitled to property tax exemptions on its New York City properties, because its primary purpose was political. In 1982 the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, overturned that ruling and held that the church should be treated as a religious organization for tax purposes. That same year, Moon was imprisoned in the United States after a jury found him guilty of willfully filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy. Members mailed booklets, letters, and videotapes to approximately 300,000 Christian leaders. Many signed petitions in protest. The American Baptist Churches, the National Council of Churches, the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference filed briefs supporting Moon.
Criticism has also targeted the teachings. Commentators object that the Divine Principle describes the First World War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Cold War as conditions that prepared the world for God's kingdom. Moon was criticized for urging followers to become "crazy for God." In 1998, the journalist Peter Maass reported in The New Yorker that some members complained about the Blessing being given to non-members who had not gone through the same course. The church has also been accused of excessive financial exploitation of its members.
On the 15th of August 2012, Moon was reported to be gravely ill and on a respirator in intensive care at St. Mary's Hospital of the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul. He had been admitted the day before, after pneumonia earlier in the month. He died there on the 3rd of September. Hak Ja Han, who had co-led the church with him, became its leader.
The family soon divided. The Global Peace Foundation, founded in 2009 by Moon and Han's son Hyun Jin Moon and church leader Chung Hwan Kwak, distanced itself from the FFWPU. Hyun Jin Moon later founded the Family Peace Association, in 2017. In 2014, Moon and Han's younger sons, Hyung Jin Moon and Kook-jin Moon, founded the Rod of Iron Ministries, also called the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church. It has been controversial for advocating private ownership of firearms and for supporting the January 6 protest at the United States Capitol. The mother church has struggled with severe financial difficulties since Moon's death.
On the 23rd of September 2025, Han was arrested on bribery charges tied to Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, the former first lady of South Korea. Prosecutors alleged she paid for two Chanel bags and a diamond necklace worth together 80 million won, or $57,900. In March 2026, the Tokyo High Court upheld a 2025 decision ordering the church to dissolve in Japan.
Updated
Common questions
What is the Unification Church?
The Unification Church, officially the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, is an Abrahamic monotheistic new religious movement. It has a presence in approximately 100 countries, and its members are called Unificationists.
Who founded the Unification Church and when?
Sun Myung Moon founded the Unification Church in Seoul, South Korea, on the 1st of May 1954. Its original name was the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity.
What does the Unification Church believe about Sun Myung Moon?
The Unification Church teaches that Moon was the Second Coming of Christ, sent to complete the mission Jesus could not finish because of the crucifixion. Followers honor Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, as the True Parents.
What is the Divine Principle in the Unification Church?
The Divine Principle is the church's central theological text and is held by believers to be holy scripture. It teaches creation, the fall of man, and restoration, and its English translation was published in 1973.
What are Unification Church Blessing ceremonies?
Blessing ceremonies are the church's mass wedding and vow renewal rites, first held in 1961 for 36 couples in Seoul. In most cases the Blessing is not a legal wedding, and couples marry legally in separate ceremonies.
Why is the Unification Church called the Moonies?
Some American media outlets first used the word Moonies for members of the Unification Church in 1974. Many members consider the word derogatory, although Moon himself and some other leaders have used it.
Who leads the Unification Church after Sun Myung Moon's death?
Hak Ja Han, Moon's wife, leads the Unification Church. Moon died on the 3rd of September 2012, and Han was arrested on the 23rd of September 2025 on bribery charges.
What happened to the Unification Church in Japan in 2026?
In March 2026, the Tokyo High Court upheld a 2025 decision ordering the Unification Church to dissolve in Japan.
All sources
362 references cited across the entry
- 3JournalTHE BIZARRE STORY BEHIND SHINZO ABE'S ASSASSINATIONRobert F. Worth — October 2023
- 4'Moonies' church leader arrested over gifts to ex-South Korea first ladySeptember 23, 2025
- 6NewsA Church in Flux Is Flush With CashMarc Fisher et al. — November 23, 1997
- 8NewsSun Myung Moon forms new political party to merge divided KoreasMay 2003
- 9BookEncyclopedia of religion and societyWilliam H. Jr. Swatos — AltaMira Press — 1998
- 10JournalFrom the Unification Church to the Unification Movement and BackDavid G. Bromley et al. — November 2012
- 11NewsReview/Television; Sun Myung Moon Changes RobesWalter Goodman — January 21, 1992
- 12Kent, Stephen A., From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era (Syracuse University Press, 2001), 168.
- 13Barker, Eileen, The Making of a Moonie: Choice Or Brainwashing? Modern Revivals in Sociology, illustrated, reprint, revised ed. (Gregg Revivals, 1993)
- 14Bromley, David G. and Anson D. Shupe, Jr., "Moonies" in America: Cult, Church, and Crusade, edited by David G. Bromley, Sage Library of Social Research (Sage, 1979)
- 15Swatos, William H. Jr. (1998). Encyclopedia of religion and society. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. .
- 16Stymied in U.S., Moon's Church Sounds a Retreat, Marc Fisher and Jeff Leen, The Washington Post, November 24, 1997
- 17Unification Church leader arrested in South Korea over bribery allegations linked to former first ladyRaphael Rashid — 23 September 2025
- 18How Shinzo Abe's Assassination Brought the Moonies Back Into the LimelightE. Tammy Kim — 26 January 2026
- 19BookAs a peace-loving global citizenSun Myung Moon — Washington Times Foundation — 2011
- 20BookReligious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups: A Handbook for ChaplainsU. S. Department of the Army — The Minerva Group, Inc. — 2001
- 21Unification Parents Are Primary Matchmakers for Their ChildrenAlexandra E. Petri — September 26, 2018
- 22BookAmerica's Alternative ReligionsTimothy Miller — State University of New York Press — 1995
- 23NewsChurch leaders unite against MooniesPacific Island News Agency Service — February 17, 2006
- 24BookThe War Against the GreensDavid Helvarg — Johnson Books — 2004
- 25NewsBig names lend luster to group's causes – Church leader gains legitimacy among U.S. conservativesWalter Hatch — Seattle Times Company — February 13, 1989
- 26JournalThe unification church: a kaleidoscopic introductionBarker Eileen — 2018
- 27BookReligion, Mobilization, and Social ActionAnson D. Shupe et al. — Praeger — 1998
- 28BookMystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American HistoryPhilip Jenkins — Oxford University Press — 2000
- 30BookA Guide To New Religious MovementsRonald M. Enroth — InterVarsity Press — 2005
- 33기독교포털뉴스September 10, 2021
- 34Amen News교회와신앙 — July 7, 2008
- 36NewsRev. Moon, religious and political figure, dies in South Korea at 92Richard Greene et al. — CNN — September 3, 2013
- 37NewsSun Myung Moon dies at 92; Washington Times owner led the Unification ChurchEmma Brown — September 2, 2012
- 38My Take: Moon's death marks end of an eraEileen Barker — September 3, 2012
- 39News'Moonies' founder dies, aged 92September 3, 2012
- 42BookReligion and PoliticsJohn Woodrow Storey et al. — ABC-CLIO — 2002
- 43BookUnification ChurchJ. Yamamoto — Zondervan — 1995
- 48NewsReligion Returns to Russia, With a VengeanceSerge Schmemann — July 28, 1993
- 49BookLifestyle: Conversations with Members of Unification Church – "Quebedeaux, Richard" – Google КнигиRichard Quebedeaux — Erick Rodriguez — 1982
- 50NewsThe Rev Sun Myung Moon obituary Korean founder of the Unification Church – the MooniesChristoper Reed — September 2, 2012
- 51Japan
- 54Who Owns What: News World CommunicationsNovember 24, 2003
- 58NewsMoon group buys back Washington TimesIan Shapira — November 3, 2010
- 59Patrick Hickey Tahoe Boy: A journey back home John, Maryland, Seven Locks Press (2009) pp. 163–168
- 61NewsMoon's wife to speak in LawrenceThe Kansas City Star Co. — June 19, 1993
- 62NewsEvent works for understanding through friendshipsAmanda Cuda — December 28, 2004
- 63NewsBridging the Interracial GapThair Peterson — March 21, 1998
- 65Introvigne, 2000, page 19
- 66NewsReview/Television; Sun Myung Moon Changes RobesWalter Goodman — January 21, 1992
- 68NewsBushes Speak at Tokyo Rally of Group Linked to Moon ChurchAndrew Pollack — September 15, 1995
- 69NewsChronicleNadine Brozan — July 15, 1995
- 70NewsSept. 10–16; Mr. Bush's Asian TourDavid E. Sanger — September 17, 1995
- 77NewsUnification Church Says Leader Moon Is 'Gravely Ill'Sangwon Yoon — Bloomberg — August 15, 2012
- 79NewsLocked and Loaded for the LordTom Dunkel — May 21, 2018
- 81NewsAmen NewsSeptember 30, 2024
- 83Special Prosecutor Appeals Unification Church Funds Sentences3 February 2026
- 86John Bowker, 2011, The Message and the Book, UK, Atlantic Books, pp. 13–14
- 87Církev sjednoceníDušan Lužný et al. — 1997
- 91BookSun Myung Moon and the Unification ChurchFrederick Sontag — Abingdon Press — 1977
- 92Chryssides, 1991. p. 99
- 95NewsRev. Sun Myung Moon, 92, Unification Church Founder, DiesDaniel J. Wakin — September 2, 2012
- 96NewsNEW YORK DAY BY DAY; Wedding Day for 4,000July 1, 1982
- 102BookNew Religions and the Theological Imagination in AmericaMary Farrell Bednarowski — Indiana University Press — 1995
- 103BookNew Religious Movements in the Twenty-first CenturyPhillip Charles Lucas et al. — Routledge — 2004
- 105News35,000 Couples Are Invited To a Blessing by Rev. MoonLaurie Goodstein — November 28, 1997
- 108Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America: African diaspora traditions and other American innovations, Volume 5 of Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, W. Michael A
- 109Exploring New Religions, Issues in contemporary religion, George D. Chryssides, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001, p. 1
- 115JournalReview of The Making of a MoonieWilliam Rusher — December 19, 1986
- 117Oakes, Len "By far the best study of the conversion process is Eileen Barker's The Making of a Moonie ..." from Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities, 1997,
- 118Storr, Anthony Dr. Feet of clay: a study of gurus 1996
- 119Past Winners
- 120The Coming Deliverer: Millennial Themes in World Religions, Editors: Fiona Bowie, Christopher Deacy Publisher: University of Wales Press, 1997 Original from the University of Virginia Digitized June 2
- 121JournalAcademic Compromise in the Social Scientific Study of Alternative ReligionsStephen Kent et al. — 1998
- 122BookExposition of the Divine PrincipleSung Hwa Publishing Co., LTD — 2005
- 126NewsReligion: Sun Myung Moon's Goodwill BlitzApril 22, 1985
- 127"Unification Church seen as persecuted", The Milwaukee Sentinel, September 15, 1984, p. 4
- 131Yamamoto, J. 1995, Unification Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Press, p. 40
- 132Walter Ralston Martin, Ravi K. Zacharias, The Kingdom of the Cults, Bethany House, 2003, pp. 368–370
- 139Sontag, Frederick, Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, (Abingdon Press, 1977; Korean translation, Pacific Publishing Company, 1981; Japanese translation, Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., 1977; German
- 143Raspberry, William, "Did Unpopular Moonie Get a Fair Trial?", The Washington Post, April 19, 1984
- 146JournalAfghanistan: eight years of Soviet occupationMarch 1988
- 149Kaplan, Robert, Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan, New York: Vintage Departures, 2001, p. 170
- 150NewsReport says list of 'Islamophobic groups' reaches new highKimberly Winston — June 20, 2016
- 154NewsMillion Moon MarchFrederick Clarkson — October 9, 2000
- 157MagazineAmerican Life TV targets baby boomersJohn Dempsey — June 1, 2007
- 159MagazineThe 2007 Time 100Ishmael Beah — May 3, 2007
- 163Fuero Militar PolicialFmp.gob.pe
- 164Portal Peruano Sociedad y ParlamentoCongreso.gob.pe
- 166David Yamashiro Es Nombrado Embajador Para La PazEscrito por Imagen Institucional — Municportillo.gob.pe
- 169mk 'ş˝ş ĹëŔĎął źź°čşťşÎąłČ¸ ťő źşŔü, żëťężĄ żĎ°řNews.mk.co.kr — February 18, 2010
- 170International Day Of Peace 2009 TimelineDipity.com
- 175UN officials underline religions' role in promoting global harmonyUn.org — February 7, 2012
- 176Letter to Your Holiness, Pope Benedict XVIJanuary 24, 2012
- 177UN launches first World Interfaith Harmony WeekFebruary 1, 2011
- 179Tingle, D. and Fordyce, R. 1979, Phases and Faces of the Moon: A Critical Examination of the Unification Church and its Principles, Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press pp. 86–87
- 180Biermans, J. 1986, The Odyssey of New Religious Movements, Persecution, Struggle, Legitimation: A Case Study of the Unification Church Lewiston, New York and Queenston, Ontario: The Edwin Melton Press
- 183ICUSMarch 9, 2016
- 185BookLibrary journal, Volume 131, Issues 12–152006
- 186BookAs a Peace-Loving Global CitizenSun Myung Moon — Gimm-Young Publishers — 2009
- 187Christianity: A Global History, David Chidester, HarperCollins, 2001, , 9780062517708, pages 514 to 515
- 188The World's Religions: Continuities and Transformations, Peter B Clarke, Peter Beyer, Taylor & Francis, 2008 , 9781135211004
- 191The Resurrection of Reverend MoonPBS — January 21, 1992
- 193Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, Frederick Sontag, Abingdon Press, January 1, 1977, page 122
- 195NewsMoon Speech Raises Old Ghosts as the Times Turns 20Frank Ahrens — May 23, 2002
- 196Pak was founding president of the Washington Times Corporation (1982–1992), and founding chairman of the board. Bo Hi Pak, Appendix B: Brief Chronology of the Life of Dr. Bo Hi Pak, in Messiah: My Tes
- 197"Rabbi Joins the Board of Moonie Newspaper", The Palm Beach Post, May 21, 1978
- 199"Moon's "Cause" Takes Aim At Communism in Americas." The Washington Post. August 28, 1983
- 202NewsOn 13, Sandinistas Vs. MiskitosJohn Corry — July 29, 1986
- 204FAIR
- 206Private Groups Report Surge in Aid to ContrasMay 8, 1985
- 207'Covert' War on Sandinistas Changing HandsDecember 22, 2016
- 208NewsCIA, Moonies Cooperate in Sandinista WarJack Anderson — August 16, 1984
- 209The Dark Shadow Cast by Moon Sun Myung's Unification Church and Abe ShinzoPeter McGill — October 15, 2022
- 213NewsUNIFICATION CHURCH RULED ELIGIBLE FOR TAX EXEMPTION BARRED BY CITYKenneth A. Briggs — 1982-05-07
- 214Police chief dies at ballgameJohnny Miller — September 3, 1983
- 216ICRF-JAPAN 国際宗教自由連合December 13, 2024
- 217NewsIre at school Star of David ruling unites ACLU, Pat RobertsonDiego Ribadeneira — August 21, 1999
- 219Cults and New Religious Movements in the Former Soviet UnionPaul Carden — Summer 1998
- 222金장례식에 日여자마술사 초청한 까닭상균 임 et al. — December 21, 2011
- 223NewsReverend Moon's Group Wants to Talk Investment : Seoul Nods At Church's Foray NorthDon Kirk — May 2, 1998
- 224NewsChurch Reaches Across Border in Korea Car Venture : Moon's Northward PushDon Kirk — February 16, 2000
- 227Hani
- 229S. Korea says food aid reached intended beneficiaries in N. Korea광태 김 — November 30, 2011
- 230Kbs NewsSports.kbs.co.kr
- 231Moon Sun Myung Awarded National Reunification PrizeSeptember 7, 2012
- 235News.mk.co.krDecember 28, 2006
- 237News in Nepal: Fast, Full & FactualMyrepublica.Com — May 19, 2012
- 238Unificationists in the Voting BoothSeptember 26, 2016
- 239NewsHak Ja Han Moon calls for South Korea Japan SolidarityOctober 6, 2019
- 244Huffington Post: "Trump hails Unification Church"September 13, 2021
- 245NewsTrump gives virtual speech to event linked to controversial religious "cult" on 9/11 anniversaryAlex Woodward — September 21, 2021
- 246Trinidad and Tobago Newsday: "Carmona, Trump call for Korean reunification"September 13, 2021
- 247Prime Minister Abe sent congratulatory telegrams to Unification ChurchAkahata — October 14, 2006
- 248NewsJapan PM's popularity dives over party links to Unification churchJustin McCurry — August 23, 2022
- 251Daske, D. and Ashcraft, W. 2005, New Religious Movements, New York: New York University Press, p142
- 252Yamamoto, J. 1995, Unification Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Press, p40
- 253Walter Ralston Martin, Ravi K. Zacharias, The Kingdom of the Cults, Bethany House, 2003, pages 368–370
- 256John Warwick Montgomery and Thomas J. J. Altizer, The Altizer-Montgomery Dialogue: A Chapter in the God is Dead Controversy (InterVarsity Press, Chicago, 1967), p.7
- 261BookSun Myung Moon and the Unification ChurchFrederick Sontag — Abingdon Press — 1977
- 263Walter Ralston Martin, Ravi K. Zacharias, The Kingdom of the Cults, Bethany House, 2003, pp. 368–370.
- 266BookThe Christian AgnosticWeatherhead, L.D. — Hodder and Stoughton — 1965
- 267Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions, and the New Age Movement by Ruth A. Tucker 1989 pp. 250–251
- 268Daske, D. and Ashcraft, W. 2005, New Religious Movements, New York: New York University Press, "To restart the process toward perfection, God has sent messiahs to earth who could restore the true stat
- 269Yamamoto, J. 1995, Unification Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Press, "The doctrine of indemnity. Indemnity is that which people do to restore themselves to God's kingdom. Young Oon Kim desc
- 271Divine Principle – Restoration29 August 2009
- 272Exposition of the Divine Principle
- 274Yamamoto, J. I., 1995, Unification Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House
- 275Daske and Ashcraft
- 276Daske, D. and Ashcraft, W. 2005, New Religious Movements, New York: New York University Press, p142.
- 277Rev.Keiko Kawasaki, "Concerned about the Principle Movement"
- 279The Neverending Story – indemnity! indemnity! indemnity !('Anti-Japan Tribalism 반일종족주의, 反日種族主義'edited by Lee Younghoon, p.188)
- 280Tingle, D. and Fordyce, R. 1979, The Phases and Faces of the Moon: A Critical Examination of the Unification Church and Its Principles, Hicksville, New York: Exposition Press p53-55
- 281Shukan Bunshun「週刊文春」編集部 — November 10, 2022
- 282TBS NewsDecember 17, 2022
- 283NewsUnification Church Called Seoul ToolRichard Halloran — March 16, 1978
- 284BookSpiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian RightSara Diamond — South End Press — 1989
- 286NewsHouse Subcommittee's Report Links Rev. Moon to the KCIAT.R. Reid — August 5, 1977
- 287NewsMoon Sect Support of Nixon DetailedCharles R. Babcock — November 10, 197
- 288BookThe Coors ConnectionRuss Bellant — South End Press — 1999
- 289NewsMoon official balks at probe, faces House contempt actionThe Associated Press — November 5, 1977
- 290NewsNew York Times AbstractsAugust 5, 1977
- 291NewsRev. Moon's CARP recruits on campusAlison Hirschel — April 20, 1980
- 292Moon's Sect Loses Libel Suit in LondonWilliam Borders — April 1, 1981
- 293"The Church That Breaks Up Families," Daily Mail (London), May 29, 1978.
- 294Hilary Devries, ed., "Unification Church loses suit against British paper," The Christian Science Monitor, April 1, 1981.
- 295James T. Richardson and Barend van Driel, "New Religious Movements in Europe: Developments and Reactions" in Anti-Cult Movements in Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Anson Shupe and David G. Broml
- 296Eileen Barker, The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? (1984; repr., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 2.
- 297Eileen Barker, "General Overview of the "Cult Scene" in Great Britain," Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 4, no. 2 (2001): 235–240, 236.
- 298George D. Chryssides, Exploring New Religions (London and New York: Cassell, 1999), 358.
- 299George D. Chryssides, "Britain's Anti-cult movement," in New Religious Movements: Changes and Responses, edited by Jamie Cresswell and Bryan Wilson, 257–273 268, (London and New York: Routledge, 1999)
- 300George D. Chryssides, "Britain's Changing Faiths: Adaptation in a New Environment," in The Growth of Religious Diversity: Britain from 1945, Volume II: Issues, edited by G. Parson, 55–84 79, London: R
- 304NewsThe Rev. Moon Honored at Hill Reception – Lawmakers Say They Were MisledCharles Babington et al. — June 23, 2004
- 305NewsLawmakers Scurry From the LightJune 27, 2004
- 306Name change by Unification Church a baffling issue years laterAugust 3, 2022
- 309【独自】関係者「母親は旧統一教会に献金１億円」、土地・自宅売却で破産 : 読売新聞オンラインJuly 13, 2022
- 310【速報】旧統一教会と関係絶てない議員「同じ党で活動できない」 自民党・茂木幹事長（TBS NEWS DIG Powered by JNN）August 31, 2022
- 311Japan to ask court to strip Unification Church of religious statusTim Kelly — October 12, 2023
- 314Japan court orders controversial 'Moonies' church to disbandShaimaa Khalil et al. — March 25, 2025
- 315NewsNHKMarch 25, 2025
- 316A court orders the dissolution of the Unification Church in JapanMarch 25, 2025
- 317A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolvedMarch 25, 2025
- 319Japan: Court upholds order to dissolve Unification Church4 March 2026
- 321Japan's Supreme Court Confirms the Dissolution of the Unification ChurchMassimo Introvigne — 2026-06-23
- 322統一教会がスラップ連発～問われる日本の民主主義Matsumoto Takahiro — July 28, 2023
- 323NewsEditorial: Japan gov't needs to uncover Unification Church's murky adoption practiceFebruary 1, 2023
- 324Robert Parry: Moon, North Korea & the BushesRobert Parry — October 13, 2006
- 326TBS TelevisionOctober 14, 2022
- 327Yahoo!ニュースYahoo Japan News — December 8, 2022
- 328Yahoo!ニュースYahoo Japan News — December 8, 2022
- 329文春オンライン「週刊文春」編集部 — Bungeishunju — September 15, 2022
- 330TBS TelevisionOctober 14, 2022
- 331'新친일' 통일교와 日자민당 정권 40년 유착.."자민당 의원 180명과 관계"September 5, 2017
- 332굿모닝충청조하준 기자 — April 3, 2023
- 333NewsChurch and HeresyOctober 7, 2024
- 334NewsPeople Power Party Demands Probe into Democratic Party's Unification Church FundsDecember 6, 2025
- 335NewsUnification Church leader arrested in bribery case involving former South Korean president's wifeKim Tong-Hyung — Associated Press — September 22, 2025
- 336NewsUnification Church leader indicted over alleged political donationsOctober 10, 2025
- 338NewsEx-Unification Church Head Admits Donations to Democratic Party LawmakersDecember 6, 2025
- 342Joint Prosecution-Police Search Rep. Chun's Office Over Evidence Destruction11 February 2026
- 343Evangelical-Unification Dialogue (Conference series – Unification Theological Seminary; no. 3) Richard Quebedeaux, Rodney Sawatsky, Paragon House, 1979, , pp. 77–99.
- 344Frederick Sontag,1977, Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, Abingdon Press, , p. 185.
- 345Irving Louis Horowitz, 1978, Science, Sin, and Scholarship: The Politics of Reverend Moon and the Unification Church, MIT Press, , p. 114
- 346The A to Z of New Religious Movements, George D. Chryssides Scarecrow Press, 2006, p. 155
- 347Tingle, D. and Fordyce, R. 1979, The Phases and Faces of the Moon: A Critical Examination of the Unification Church and Its Principles, Hicksville, New York: Exposition Press , pp. 20–21
- 348George D. Chryssides, "Unificationism: A study in religious syncretism", Chapter 14 in Religion: empirical studies, Editor: Steven Sutcliffe, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004, , p. 232.
- 349The Way of God's Will Chapter 3. LeadersUnification.org
- 350Crazy for GodTheologytoday.ptsem.edu
- 351BookReactions to the law by minority religionsTaylor & Francis Group Routledge — 2021
- 357JournalFronteiras espirituais e fronteiras nacionais: o combate às seitas na FrançaPatricia Birman — April 1, 2005
- 359Croyances et appartenances : un débat françaisPatricia Birman — April 6, 2024
- 363NewsCourt Rules Rights Laws Protect Against Religious DiscriminationMarch 2, 2024
- 365Moonistku Marii Živnou našli na samotce mrtvou. Zavraždila ji StB?Post Bellum — March 22, 2025
- 366NewsDeska Marie Živné na hradě zatím nebudeBohuslav Stehno — November 6, 2014
- 368Příběh Marie Živné ožívá padesát let po její záhadné smrtiAnna Kubínová — April 23, 2024
- 373Swatos, Jr, William H. (1998). Encyclopedia of religion and society. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press. .
- 374Helm, S. Divine Principle and the Second Advent Archived September 21, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. Christian Century May 11, 1977 "In fact Moon's adherents differ from previous fringe groups in thei
- 375Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America: African diaspora traditions and other American innovations: Introduction, Eugene V. Gallagher, W. Michael Ashcraft, Greenwood Publishing Group
- 376JournalFinancing the Millennium: The Economic Structure of the Unificationist MovementDavid G. Bromley — 1985