▲ A photo of “holy marriage blessing ceremony” of the Unification Church
On September 7, 2017, the “holy marriage blessing ceremony”, namely a grand mass wedding sponsored by the Unification Church was held in Gapyeong County, South Korea. About 4000 couples from 64 countries witnessed the oath of love in the presence of 30,000 guests. On the same day, 20,000 lovers participated in an online ceremony. In fact, since 1960, the Unification Church has held numerous mass weddings, which are called “holy marriage blessing ceremonies”, with increasingly larger scale and more participants of varied races, nationalities or ethnic groups.
However, such seemingly happy marriages are widely divergent from fairy tales with happy endings.
The Unification Church has long been controversial around the world.
△ Richard Bletchley, a senior British journalist, claimed that the Unification Church “exploits vulnerable young people, brainwashes followers and cheats them out of money”.
△ A Japanese priest defined it as “an anti-ideological and anti-social organization similar to other heresies and cults”.
△ Moon Sun-myung, the founder of the Unification Church, was charged with 12 crimes in the United States, and was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of 18 months in 1982.
Moon died of illness in South Korea in 2012, so one of the purposes of holding the mass wedding this year was to commemorate the 5th anniversary of Moon’s death!
How horrifying it is that they hold a wedding as a memorial ceremony for the dead!
Why is the cult so keen on mass weddings? And what are the secrets behind the “blessing ceremony”?
Disclosure of the truth
Moon Sun-myung and the Unification Church
The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which is commonly called the Unification Church, was founded by Korean Moon Sun-myung in Busan, South Korea, in 1954. Moon claimed that he was enlightened by Jesus to unite all the Christian factions and “establish a heavenly kingdom in man’s world”.
▲A picture of young Moon Sun-myung
According to Moon Sun-myung, Jesus saved the souls of human beings, but “original sin” still remained in human bodies. The method to perfect human beings was to give birth to children without “original sin”. He claimed to bear the special mission to mate people of different races, in order to promote the understanding of different cultures.
Moon organized the distinctive large-scale mass weddings which were named “holy marriage blessing ceremony” or “blessing ceremony”. He claimed that marrying with designated spouses was a method to be relieved from “original sin” and the only way to be redeemed. However, the so-called designated spouses were randomly picked, or even complete strangers before such mass weddings.
▲ The so-called “the incarnation of deities”: Moon Sun-Myung and his wife
Doctrines of the Unification Church also stipulate that “mass wedding should be held at the same place. In addition, couples should pledge to set up perfect families centering on God in the presence of a host, the incarnation of deities.
Moon claimed to hold such mass weddings for world peace. “Marriages will not only bring happiness to individuals and corresponding families, but also to all human beings centering on God,” he claimed. As a consequence, followers should accept their designated spouses unconditionally.
But this practice has been questioned. When the Unification Church began to develop a following in the United States, many people considered it to be a cult. When it comes to Unification Church, many people would associate it with mass weddings.
Weird mass weddings
In April 1960, only 3 couples attended the first mass wedding by the Unification Church. As the scale has expanded, tens of thousands of couples have started participating in such wedding ceremonies.
The first step of the original pairing process was that unmarried young people sent their photos to Moon Sun-Myung. Then Moon would designate spouses according to photos. Afterwards, the Church would send photos to corresponding spouses, which was recognized as engagement.
As the Church expanded, members were appointed to be “matchmakers” in local areas. In addition, in recent years, “online dating” has also become available to followers.
According to regulations, newly married couples must live in special church dormitories, and cannot have sexual intercourse within 40 days. This behavior is claimed by the Unification Church to prove that their marriages are of a higher level, namely “ the love for God” according to “doctrines”. What’s more, a series of rituals should be conducted to consummate the wedding ceremony.
▲ Photos of mass weddings of the Unification Church
Cases of “murdering own husbands”
Tragedies occur frequently due to the random pairings.
On August 21, 2012, South Korea’s Kookmin Ilbo (People’s Daily) reported a Unification Church related murder case. The murderer was a 52-year-old Japanese woman who killed her husband. She was married to a Korean and lived in South Korea after attending a mass wedding sponsored by the Unification Church in 1995.
According to the report, her husband had no job and was fed by a relief fund when they got married. For 17 years, they had fallen on hard days as her husband was jobless. She took part-time jobs in canteens and worked as a nanny for 12 hours, a day to barely make ends meet. What’s more, her husband always indulged in excessive drinking and was violent towards her. From 2010, her husband also suffered from kidney diseases which needed hemodialysis. The high cost of treatment brought more burdens to such a penniless and frustrated family.
In the end, the woman covered her husband’s mouth and nose and suffocated him to be free of her daily sufferings.
Subsequently, this case attracted people’s attention to the mass weddings of the Unification Church. Professor Nakanishi of Sociology of Religion at Kansai University of Japan believed that “it is the mass wedding of the Unification Church that lead to the tragedy”.
Similar murders also happened in Chuncheon city, Gangwon-do, a province of South Korea. The miserable lives of these Japanese women are all ascribed to the mass weddings of the Unification Church.
Real married life
Moon Sun-Myung advocated “mass weddings” and “perfect family”. He also claimed that “South Korea is Adam while Japan is Eve”, Japanese women should marry Korean males and devote themselves to South Korea.
▲ A book of the Unification Church: To those who marry for happiness
However, among these families, the language barrier is the biggest problem. As couples had no love, women almost always live in poverty and are abused by their husbands after marriage. Tragedies occurred frequently, for example, a 53-year-old Japanese woman burnt herself, a South Korean man killed his Japanese mother-in-law and a man from the Philippines killed his Japanese wife, etc..
In addition, being heavily in debt is also a big problem. New couples who participated in the mass weddings should pay 1.4 million yen (about $12,000) for “blessings”. In order to get such a large amount of money, many people deceived their family members into working overtime, and even became involved in robberies and other illegal activities.
Japanese Weekly Post magazine published a report entitled “Sex hell” of Japanese wives after marrying farmers of South Korea, which was based on the investigations in the rural areas of South Korea conducted by a professor at Hokkaido University. According to this report, about 7,000 Japanese women attended mass weddings in South Korea, and 60% of them were arranged to marry farmers in the poor rural areas of South Korea.
▲ A screen shot of Japanese Weekly Post magazine
Professor Sakurai Yoshihide at Hokkaido University said: “Marriage of rural males in South Korea has long been a difficult problem. Hence, Japanese women who participate in the mass weddings will be sent to rural area in South Korea. The Unification Church calls Japanese followers ‘a selected force who bears special missions’, who should devote themselves to South Korea. According to our survey, most of the female followers who marry Koreans live in a state of utter poverty.”
The Japanese language version of the “Christian Today” website also published an article which said that, since the mass wedding in 2006, 6,500 Japanese women were found missing. The families of the victims had jointly accused and asked the Unification Church to find the whereabouts of the missing women.
▲ A screen shot of an article published on Japanese website “Christian Today”.
There is an organization called the Liaison of Principle Issues of the Unification Church in Japan, which is an organization engaged in revealing and criticizing its evil conducts.
National Liaison of Lawyers Against Reikan Shouhou is an organization which offers relief to victims of the Unification Church. Watanabe Hiroshi, a lawyer with the group, said: “Many women flee back to Japan due to family violence and poverty. Some of them had broken up with their families to join mass weddings. Consequently, they are homeless in Japan, or have no choice but to stay in South Korea after divorce.”
The so-called “perfect family” is just a lie
In fact, even the family of Moon Sun-myung was not that perfect.
Within the Unification Church, the family of Moon Sun-myung and Han Hak-ja was called the “true family”. However, the fact is that Moon married several women. Although he claimed that God is in his heart and he is the incarnation of God and that he would “take over the world”, he could not even control the fate of his family members.
According to the New York Times, rumors were going around about Moon’s extramarital affairs with his followers. In 1952, he divorced his first wife who gave birth to his illegitimate son in 1954. In 1960, Moon married 17-year-old Han Hak-ja and had a total of 13 children. But his second son died in a car accident in 1984, and another son jumped to his death from a building in the United States in 1999. In 1995, Hong Nan-sook, the wife of Moon’s first son Moon Hyo-jin, broke off relations with the Moon family. In her book In the shadow of the Moons, Hong revealed that Moon Hyo-jin indulged himself in sex, pornographic movies, narcotics and domestic violence. Hong claimed that the Moon family were alienated due to plots and scheming.
“Matchmakers” or “traders in human beings”
Are you wondering why people work towards their own ruin? Moon Sun-myung’s lies are full of loopholes.
One of the reasons is that Moon took advantage of celebrities to promote his words.
According to reports, Japanese star Junko Sakurada, who was equally famous as Momoe Yamaguchi at that time, took part in the mass wedding ceremony in 1992, and announced that she had been part of the cult for 15 years. The Unification Church just hyped the happy life of the star but was indifferent to the negative news.
▲Momoe Yamaguchi(left) and Junko Sakurada(roght)
Apart from inveigling females by using stars, Moon Sun-myung also acted as a warm-hearted “matchmaker” for males.
A journalist from Japanese Shukan Bunshun carried out a deep investigation in rural areas of South Korea. Local young men said that one of the reasons to believe in the Unification Church was to marry someone.
It did not matter that followers lacked faith, had no job, were inflicted with alcoholism or had a tendency towards domestic violence. Moon Sun-myung even claimed that if designated by him, followers without eyes or noses were sure to have wives.
As a result, the Unification Church has recruited many single young men. Moon claimed with certainty to find a spouse for every follower.
Marriage is a sacred and beautiful word and “holding your hand and growing old together with you” is a solemn commitment of a lifetime. However, the seemingly grand weddings ruined numerous people and resulted in countless tragedies. Curing diseases easily, easy money or perfect families with designated spouses are all sheer nonsense. At any time, be wary not to devote all of yourself to people who make promises casually.
