The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, the Unification Church, the Unification Church, the Unification Church are all one and the same religious structure, which is most often referred to by the name of its creator Moon Son Myung Moon Church. She has fierce supporters and equally fierce haters. The former see in this organization a manifestation of the main Christian principle “God is love”, the latter consider it a totalitarian sect.
Moon Yong Myung (this is the name given to the head of the Moon Church - Moon Son Myung) was born in 1920 in a Korean village. His parents welcomed the poor, gave shelter to travelers, and never sought to enrich themselves at the expense of their neighbors.
The country was then undergoing Japanese occupation, the occupiers treated Koreans as second-class people and oppressed them in every possible way. The disaffected were thrown into prisons and often executed. But in Korea there was a growing national liberation movement, which included some of Moon's older relatives.
Schoolboy against war
In 1930, Moon's family converted to Christianity, and he himself was assigned to the parish church, where he began to serve as a priest. Very early on, he began to ask serious questions. Why do people kill each other? Why do wars happen? What is death and why does God allow it? How to make everyone live happily? At fourteen, he came up with an answer to his questions.
At the Confucian school, on the occasion of the end of the school year, he said from the stage to his students and parents: “The Japanese must pack their things and get out to Japan as soon as possible! This land was left to us by our ancestors, and all future generations of our people should live here. The effect was amazing: the audience turned deathly pale, and the Japanese officials present took note of the student.
Two years later, on the eve of Easter, Moon went to pray to the top of a nearby mountain and, asking unanswered questions, wept bitterly. He asked God to give him some sign, to indicate what he can do to make the world even slightly better. According to Moon himself, at that moment Jesus appeared to him and gave the following answer: “God feels the deepest pain because of the suffering of mankind. And you must take on a special mission and carry out God's work on earth. So a sixteen-year-old peasant boy began to consider himself the messiah.
Promotional video:
After high school, Moon entered a gymnasium in Seoul, and then decided to go to study in Japan. Since the police opened a case against him, the Japanese were not eager to open a visa for him. Moon besieged officials almost daily, and in the end he was allowed to leave to study. But in Japan he found himself under police surveillance. Often he was dragged to a police station opposite the university and severely beaten. And when Moon was going on vacation to Korea, the "tail" followed him to the pier.
Prison "universities"
Moon was interested in politics, but he had a special interest in Christianity. He took out copies of the Bible in three languages - Korean, Chinese and Japanese - and constantly compared the texts with each other. And he made notes in the margins until the books were full of his comments. The money that was sent to him from home, he distributed to the poor, and he had to earn money with anyone.
Gradually, he developed his own view of the world. For Moon, destroying suffering at that time was tantamount to destroying the Japanese. He talked about this with his friends at a Japanese university.
In 1937, a phase of harsh suppression of the Korean resistance began. Returning to his homeland and getting married for the first time, Moon soon found himself at the police station for organizing a tiny church where people read and interpreted sacred texts. The police subjected him to terrible torture, accusing him of organizing a revolutionary fighting detachment and demanding to name his accomplices. But he didn't betray anyone. And six months later, having freed himself, he burned all his diaries, where at least some names were mentioned. Since then, he has been arrested systematically.
In 1946, Moon founded the "Church of the Wide Sea" and went to Pyongyang, where a large-scale campaign was under way to eliminate the religion.
In 1948 he was arrested not by the Japanese, but by the Korean communists who had come to power. He was sentenced to five years, of which three were in the Hinnam concentration camp. From there he was saved only by American air strikes. Moon, along with his camp comrades, managed to cross the 38th parallel, dividing Korea into two countries.
In 1954 he renamed the "Church of the Wide Sea" to the "Association of the Holy Spirit for the Unification of World Christianity." He declared himself the messiah. In 1955, he was arrested by the now South Korean authorities on charges of sexual perversion, bigamy, rape and forcibly keeping people in his association. But after the investigation, for lack of evidence, they released him.
In the same year, he was arrested on charges of evading military service, but he was also forced to release. Moon managed to go behind bars even in the United States, where he later received a residence permit. There he was accused of tax evasion and forgery. "Messiah" spent 18 months in an American prison, although many religious leaders stood up for him.
Sin in the name of love
Moon's teaching is an attempt to unite together all Christian doctrines and add Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and other teachings to them. He believed that all people on earth want happiness. And the whole history of mankind is the desire to achieve happiness, although the paths of achievement are not always correct.
With the youngest son
Some seek happiness in spiritual service, others are more oriented towards the material path. But happiness can only be achieved by following the desires of the original soul, which has goodness. Only no one understands the desires of the original soul and does not follow its impulses. This happens because there are contradictory principles in a person: good, which corresponds to the original soul, and evil.
According to Moon, once the progenitor Eve sinned with the angel on a spiritual level and gave the fruit of evil to Adam and Adam's children - on the physical level. Christ, having come down from heaven, began to atone for this sin, but was crucified, that is, his work was partially unfulfilled.
Then Christianity, uniting people of different nations, replaced the God-chosen Jewish people with a family of believers of all nations. But the fervor of Christianity died out. And today the last times have come again, when people will have to atone for original sin and find a true family and true parents.
“God wants to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth with the help of a true family, and you and I have to go through a difficult path to become True Parents who will open the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven for all people,” Moon explained the purpose of creating a family to his bride. There are three types of love in the family - parental, conjugal, and children's love for their parents. Each family projects the relationship between God and man. God created man to nurture and love him like a child.
And a person must respond to God with the same love, up to the willingness to give his life for the benefit of a global goal. The Association has held and is conducting mass marriages, for which young chaste boys and girls are elected. Moon was accused of giving the sacrament with his flesh (sperm) and blood (mixed with milk) during such ceremonies. He was also accused of conducting orgies with copulation and three times of communion.
Moon believed that everything that God ordered him to do is done for the good and in the name of love, for the complete cleansing of people from sin and creating a happy new world. He promoted rapprochement between the two Koreas, fought against hostilities in Vietnam, called for the USSR to avert the communist doctrine.
At the same time, Moon himself and his associates were successfully doing business, implementing many cultural programs, protecting nature and holding charity events. But throughout the activity of the church, it was accompanied by endless trials. The list of accusations against Moon's organization has long been endless. After Moon's death, his youngest son Moon Hyun Jin is in charge of all the affairs of the church.
At Sun Myung Moon's funeral
Mikhail ROMASHKO