At Time of Change for Rev. Moon Church, a Return to Tradition

October 15, 2009

At Time of Change for Rev. Moon Church, a Return to Tradition

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — Thousands of couples from more than 100 countries traveled here to tie the knot Wednesday in what was seen as the last mass wedding officiated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial and enigmatic founder of the Unification Church.

The mass wedding — often involving the exchange of vows between partners selected by Mr. Moon himself — is perhaps the best-known and most controversial feature of Mr. Moon’s church. But for members of his flock, the weddings symbolize his teachings of “trans-religion, trans-national and trans-racial" love.

The confetti-filled 90-minute spectacle, broadcast live on the Internet in three languages, was the largest Mr. Moon had organized since 1999, when 21,000 couples filled Seoul’s Olympic Stadium. It came as the church has been struggling to revamp its image and increase its stagnant membership under Mr. Moon’s three sons, who have begun taking over day-to-day responsibilities for his religious and business empire.

The three sons, all U.S.-educated, are more media savvy than their reclusive father and have given a series of interviews in recent months. The church has also revamped its Web sites, which are filled with video clips of Mr. Moon and his sons.

Mr. Moon, who is 89, and his wife, Han Hak-ja, are known among his followers as the “true parents of all humankind.” Seated at an altar festooned with flowers and shaped like an ancient Korean royal throne, they smiled and nodded when 10,000 couples gathered at a lawn of the church’s Sun Moon University south of Seoul bowed to them on Wednesday.

Row after row of brides in white gowns or traditional wedding costumes of their countries stood holding hands with grooms mostly clad in black suits.

Half of them were married for the first time, with the rest renewing their wedding vows.

When Mr. Moon led three rounds of “Hurray” at the end of the ceremony, firecrackers exploded and confetti rained down from above.

Similar mass weddings, smaller but hooked up to the South Korean event via Web links, took place around the world — in Norway, Sweden, Japan, Venezuela, Honduras and the United States.

“The blessing you are receiving today is the most precious thing, one cannot exchange anything in the world,” the Rev. Moon Hyung-jin, the 30-year-old son of Mr. Moon, said as he opened the ceremony.

Mr. Moon began the group weddings in the 1960s, marrying a few dozen couples at a time. But they grabbed world attention when they grew in size.

Some 2,500 church couples exchanged or affirmed their vows in November 1997 in a ceremony at RFK Stadium in Washington. A crowd of nearly 40,000 turned out for that event.

The global mass weddings on Wednesday were to celebrate Mr. Moon’s upcoming 90th birthday in January, church officials say. In recent years, the ceremonies became smaller as Mr. Moon came under pressure amid accusations at home and abroad that he was brainwashing his followers into donating their life savings to his church and marrying partners selected by him.

Previously, most couples met their spouses for the first time at the wedding. He also arranged for South Korean church members, including some of his own grandchildren, to marry followers from Japan, the former colonial ruler of Korea, saying that the two nations could build love through marriages.

In recent media interviews, Moon Hyung-jin, who married a bride chosen by his father when he was 17, said that the church had modified the practice and that couples now met and dated well before their weddings.

He was designated last year to take over religious leadership of the church. Another son, Moon Kook-jin, 39, was put in charge of the church’s business ventures in South Korea, which include construction, newspapers, hospitals, schools, tourism, ski resorts, beverages and a professional soccer team. A third son, Moon Hyun-jin, 40, oversees international operations.

The church owns the Washington Times newspaper and the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, as well as the New York-based gun manufacturer Kahr Arms. The senior Mr. Moon served 13 months in a U.S. prison on tax evasion charges in the 1980s.

Moon Hyung-jin studied theology at Harvard University, where he went about campus with a shaved head and dressed in a Buddhist robe. Today, with slicked-back hair, he leads a congregation in Seoul, where he plays rock-like gospel music and has vowed to undertake reforms like increasing transparency in fund-raising. But he said he “could never replace my father,” who church officials say will remain forever as the “Messiah.”

The elder Mr. Moon, born in what is now North Korea, said that when he was 15, Jesus appeared to him while he was praying on a mountaintop and asked him to complete his unfinished work. According to his official biography, he was persecuted by the Communists and fled to South Korea during the 1950-3 Korean War. He founded his church, officially named the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, in 1954.

In 1991, he traveled to North Korea to meet Kim Il-sung, the North Korean founder and president. His church now runs an auto company and a hotel in Pyongyang.

Mr. Moon claims his church has a presence in 193 countries. But it was never recognized by orthodox Christian churches in South Korea, which dominate religious life here, along with Buddhist sects.

Indeed, the mass wedding on Wednesday drew little attention here. South Korean media only carried brief dispatches on the event, but many of them focused on the fact that a daughter of the late military strongman Park Chung-hee renewed her wedding vows during the event, although she said she was not a church member.

Park Geun-ryeong, 55, a Roman Catholic, told the mass-circulation Dong-A daily: “I join in a trans-religious spirit. I like the Unification Church way of interpreting the Bible, incorporating the Koran and Buddhist scripts.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company