MARCH

The March 1st (Samil) Movement came about as a result of Japan’s repressive colonial occupation of Korea starting in 1905.  On March 1, 1919, thirty-three activists who formed the core of the movement read the Korean Declaration of Independence which they had signed. This sparked nationwide demonstrations which were viciously put down by Japanese police.

The March 1st Movement had a profound impact on True Father. In his autobiography, he stated that his great-uncle, Yoon Guk Moon, a graduate of Pyongyang Theological Seminary and a minister, “participated in the drafting of the 1919 Declaration of Independence.” He also “printed thousands of Korean flags and handed them out to the people who poured into the streets.” Yoon Guk Moon later was arrested and put under constant surveillance.  True Father wrote that his great-uncle’s “steadfast love for his country, even in the face of extreme adversity,” provided him with a “definite compass” for his life.  True Father was born 10 months after the March 1, 1919 demonstrations.

On March 1, 1973, the first International Training Session began at Belvedere in Tarrytown, New York. Initiated as a 100-day program for future church leaders, the schedule included forty days of intense Divine Principle study, thirty days of the Victory over Communism (VOC) ideology and thirty days of Unification Thought, a recently published application of the Principle to philosophy. The six hours of daily lectures were interspersed with talks from True Father, fellowship, discussion, examinations, lecture practice, and participation in the ongoing New York City outreach campaign.

In addition to solidifying the U.S. Unification Church, Belvedere Training was the first international training program as it included recently arrived “New Pilgrims” from Europe. One U.S. participant wrote: “Europeans were not the only ones wearing smiles of eagerness and anticipation. Some American brothers were intoxicated in those early days, because we were so many fine people together and Belvedere is the most holy place in America.”

Belvedere Training also afforded intimate access to True Parents who spent much time there. Joseph Kinney wrote, “People who needed internal guidance, or who had spiritual problems, went directly to Father Moon. There was no security on the property; True Parents would just walk around the grounds and the garden, and members could just walk up to them. … The chain of commanders and links between Father Moon and us was extremely short. He spoke to us throughout the day, and he had personal give and take with everybody in the Training Center, even if it was just one or two sentences. If you were lucky, you’d give a testimony in front of him, or he’d bonk you gently on the head or ask you what country you were from. Even if he saw you in a crowd, there’d be some acknowledgment.”

On January 1, 1982, True Father announced his intention of starting a new daily newspaper in Washington, D.C.  Specifically, True Father stated his intention of founding a conservative daily newspaper in the nation’s capital. The Washington Star, the capital’s only major competitor of the powerful but liberal-leaning The Washington Post, had folded the previous year, and many lamented the prospect of Washington, D.C., becoming a “one-newspaper town.”

On January 1, True Father selected 200 newspaper trainees from among a full ballroom of Unificationist volunteers and directed that The Washington Times be published within three months, on March 1, to correspond with the anniversary of Korea’s Samil Independence Movement. True Father appointed Dr. Bo Hi Pak as president.

In the 58 days from January 1 to March 1, Dr. Pak recruited an experienced editor and publisher as well as a first-rate staff, including a number of well-known journalists. He also found and obtained True Father’s approval to purchase a former paper factory located on New York Avenue NE, just a short distance from downtown Washington, as The Times’ headquarters. Still, articles for the first edition had to be transmitted to New York, where they were typeset in the offices of The News World. Dr. Pak himself went to New York and brought the newspaper negatives back to Washington overnight on a chartered light aircraft.

True Mother led the observance of the second anniversary of Foundation Day and conducted an International Marriage Blessing at the Cheongshim Peace World Center, Gapyeong, Korea, on March 3, 2015 (January 13, H.C.). True Parents originally established Foundation Day on February 20, 2013, as the starting point for the substantial realization of Cheon Il Guk.

Eight hundred new couples and 3,000 existing couples participated in the 2015 Cosmic Blessing Ceremony, which was attended by 20,000 in the Peace World Center. Approximately 20,000 couples from 194 nations participated in the ceremony via live Internet broadcast, bringing the total number of couples to 24,000. In her Foundation Day speech, True Mother told participants, “The Marriage Blessing will hold no meaning if you allow your Blessing to extend only to your family, while living in this age of True Parents. You must reveal to your neighbors, your tribe and your nation that True Parents are the true owners. That is the only way for you to go today if you want to receive the crown of glory.”

In addition to the Blessing, FFWPU Publishing Committee President Young-hwi Kim and Vice President Jae-suk Lee dedicated the final volume of the Scriptures, the Cham Bumo Gyeong. This completed the Cheon Il Guk Scriptures composed of the Cheon Seong Gyeong, the Pyeong Hwa Gyeong and the Cham Bumo Gyeong.

On March 4, 2013, the first Entrance Ceremony for the Universal Peace Academy (UPA) was held in the Main Chapel of Cheongshim Graduate School of Theology at Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center in Korea. Forty-three students, mainly from Korea and Japan but also from eight additional nations, participated. They were chosen as entering “cadets” through a strict selection process for the master’s level course, which includes the graduate school and a one-year pre-graduate language school for those needing to raise their competence in Korean.

After the Wonmo Peace Foundation was established according to True Father’s direction, UPA was the first project set up for the education of Unificationist-born future leaders. True Mother founded and named the academy. At the entrance ceremony, she said that under the motto of “Loving Heaven, Loving Nation and Loving People,” UPA “is a school to create leaders who will build a world with freedom, peace, unification and happiness in heaven and on this earth.” She called on the cadets to regard their educational experience “not only as the light of your life but the light for the seven billion people of the earth.”

True Parents hosted an assembly to commemorate the successful distribution of fifty thousand copies of True Father’s autobiography, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, in Las Vegas, Nevada where they had launched a multi-faceted ministry. Since its publication in early 2009 in Korea, True Father’s autobiography had been a bestseller, and as of 2011 was in the process of being translated into 43 languages.

The program, titled a “Cosmic Assembly to Proclaim the Words of God’s Substantial Body that has Settled as the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind” continued assemblies that True Parents began in 2010. True Father expressed his concern for the 6.5 billion people of the world, especially the “more than 900 million … suffering from malnutrition even at this very moment.” He spoke of his investment in ocean industries intended “to free humankind from the suffering of hunger” and his vision for Las Vegas as a “shining city.” Referring to his autobiography, he stated, “I hope that you will open the doors of your hearts and read … [it] closely. Please take my hand as I walk on this lonely course of saving humanity. Let us not only secure your eternal life and that of your family; let us also bring all of humanity to God, so that everyone may receive salvation and eternal life."

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), True Mother delivered an address, “The Role of Women in the Age after the Coming of Heaven and the Mission of the Women’s Federation,” in a multi-city tour of Japan from March 5 to 13. In addition to her public speeches, True Mother led Hoon Dok Hwe each day and reported to True Father, who viewed each event from locations in Korea.

On departure, True Father told her, “I pray that God will be with you so that a flower garden will come into bloom where the True Mother goes.” He also told True Mother to take his wallet, containing all of his ID cards with her, so that members would feel his presence. True Mother distributed donations from his wallet at three locations. After returning to Korea, True Mother said: “The faith of the Japanese members is so beautiful. There are so many difficulties internally and externally in Japan, but when I see the members firmly holding their faith and doing the best they can on the front line, I want to do what I can for them. I wish I could have done more for them.”

On March 6, 2015, at the Cheon Il Guk Leaders’ Assembly, True Mother appointed Sun Jin Moon as FFWPU international president and her husband, In Sup Park, as FFWPU vice president. True Mother stated: “More than anybody else they represent the True Family, and they have selflessly followed True Parents’ tradition, showing you the example. Together with you, they will move us toward the fulfillment of Vision 2020 and they will build, together with you, the eternal Kingdom of Cheon Il Guk.” She expressed hope that leaders “will help them wholeheartedly.”

Hoon Sook (Julia) Moon was appointed International President of Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP) by True Mother on February 5, 2019 and formally inaugurated on March 6. She succeeded Professor Yeon Ah Moon who served as the third president of WFWP International since 2014 and who was appointed to head the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) in Korea.

Julia Moon was for many years the prima ballerina of the Universal Ballet Company in Korea and on retirement took on a management role as director of UBC, leading the company for nearly twenty years. In her inaugural address, President Moon stated, “I dedicated my entire life to ballet with the philosophy: Make the world beautiful through heavenly arts. Now, together with all WFWP members, I have received the opportunity to go beyond the stage, to serve the world and to practice true love on a wider and more substantial scale.”

True Father first shared his vision of the importance of creating a newspaper for the Middle East at an international leaders’ conference at his sixtieth birthday observance in 1980. He did so for two major reasons. First, Unificationist missionaries were specifically forbidden from pursuing traditional missionary activities in predominantly Islamic nations. Second, local publications were of generally poor quality both in production standards and, more importantly, editorial standards. In fact, Middle East media contributed to divisions within the region by being highly partisan, controlled either directly or indirectly by government or religious interests. 

The Middle East Times, founded at the end of 1982, published its first edition on March 7, 1983. Its vision was to promote a regional view of the Middle East, taking a position of reconciliation between different sides. Published out of Cyprus, the weekly paper utilized the talents and experience of Unificationist missionaries in the region. By 1985, it circulated in 12 countries. By 1991, it circulated in 18 countries with a readership of 50,000 every week. It also played a significant providential role in connecting the Grand Muftis of Syria and Yemen as well as other Middle East leaders to True Parents.

A 100-city speaking tour in the United States was conducted from March 8 to April 27, 1994. In this tour, which had the theme “True Parents and the Completed Testament Age,” True Mother went to ten Ivy League universities, starting from Harvard University, and several of the True Children gave speeches at other universities. True Mother emphasized in her speech, “Adam and Eve were supposed to perfect their true love, and, as true parents, they were supposed to form a perfected family characterized by true love and true lineage.” (Courtesy of the History Compilation Committee)

One of the more bizarre occurrences during any of True Father’s public speaking engagements happened in Minneapolis during his 2001 “We Will Stand in Oneness” tour with the American Clergy Leadership Conference. True Father was speaking at the New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, which was filled to capacity with close to 1,000 people. Archbishop George Augustus Stallings had given a rousing introduction in which he stated that True Father has “a triple A rating from clergy who know him,” being “Anointed, Appointed, and Approved by God.” The atmosphere, as one report put it, was “electric.”

Then, with some twenty minutes to go in True Father’s speech, a transformer blew, plunging the whole neighborhood into darkness. The microphones went out and no one could see anything. According to a report, “At first there was silence and then a young girl’s scream. Some of the audience fled into the night. There was confusion and even despair, until an usher shone his flashlight on the stage.” True Father was heard to say, “Please don’t leave.” Bishop Stallings also went out into the audience, saying: “Be at peace. God is in control.” As more flashlights surfaced and candles were lit, the stage was bright in the warm glow of candlelight. Large candelabras were placed behind the podium. True Father completed his message.

The idea of publishing True Father’s autobiography, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, was first proposed by Gimm-Young Publishing Company, a leading Korean publisher. Its president, Ms. Pak Eun-ju, a practicing Buddhist, approached the church in 2008 and obtained access to voluminous source material, notablyTrue Parents’ Life Course (12 volumes), a work comprising excerpts from True Father’s speeches arranged chronologically in the form of an autobiographical account. Church representatives worked with the publisher’s writers to craft the final product, published on March 9, 2009.

It quickly made Korea’s non-fiction best-seller list. On June 1, 2009, the church hosted a commemoration of the autobiography’s publication at the Seoul Convention and Exhibition (COEX) Center for 3,500 people, including 200 foreign dignitaries. An English translation was ready by May 2010, and there was a parallel launch event. Many U.S. members purchased 430 copies, at True Parents’ request, for distribution to contacts. More than 144,000 were distributed in Las Vegas alone.

As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen consists of eight chapters which follow the general chronological flow of True Father’s life. The earlier chapters are exceptionally rich in autobiographical detail surrounding his family background, early upbringing and call to faith. The account vividly describes True Father’s torture at the hands of Japanese and North Korean interrogators as well as his imprisonments in South Korea and the United States. The later chapters focus on True Father’s marriage and family ministry and initiatives for world peace. True Father described the autobiography as an “honest and candid account.” He said it “expresses about 80 percent of [my] life.” In one speech he said he had “as much faith” in his autobiography as in the “Eight Great Textbooks.”

On March 10, 1997, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at Cheongpyeong for what was to become a major sanctuary, intended to hold up to 10,000 workshop participants at a time. In design, it was understood to be a replica of a palace in heaven, attested to in calligraphy provided for the occasion by True Father which read, “The Heavenly Palace That Came Down from Heaven.” A small mountain was leveled to construct the magnificent marble structure overlooking Cheongpyeong Lake.

True Father founded the Cheonju Pyeonghwa Tongil Gajeong Dang, or Family Party for Peace and Unity (FPPU), on March 10, 2003. Its purposes were primarily educational—to promote a true-family movement and a pure-love movement to expunge the immoral culture that has produced problems throughout the world. In fact, the Family Party neither campaigned nor fielded a candidate for office by 2007 and thereby was legally dissolved, according to a Korean law which required that a political party elect at least one candidate to office within a four-year period.

The Family Party was re-registered on August 28, 2007, and it announced that it would field candidates in the 2008 general elections for the National Assembly. FPPU was the only political party to field candidates in all 245 legislative districts. However, none were elected, and FPPU’s party registration was again canceled. Nationally, FPPU won 1.05 percent of the vote. There were some positive outcomes. Many Family Party candidates campaigned earnestly on buses, in public speeches and in television or radio debates with opponents. Their efforts did not necessarily translate into votes but helped turn public opinion on the Family Party and on Unificationism from negative to friendly in some districts. Parents and relatives of members, many of whom had been negative, were also said to be proud that their sons and daughters, nephews and nieces had committed to be candidates for public office.

On March 10, 2009, an appeals court in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, took action to release Elizaveta (Liza) Drenicheva, who had served 61 days in prison for a “crime against the peace and security of humankind.” Her offense had been to gather four persons for a seminar in which she taught the Unification Principle.

Ms. Drenicheva, who is a Russian citizen, joined the Unification Church in 1995 and began mission work in Kazakhstan, a former republic of the Soviet Union, in 2006 during which time twelve full-time members joined. However, on January 2, 2008, at 6:00 a.m., KGB officers broke in to the Unification Peace Embassy, taking away literature and computers and arresting Ms. Drenicheva. She was released after two days but faced trial on October 24, 2008, was convicted, and sentenced on January 9, 2009, to two years in prison. Unificationists worldwide considered her to be a “prisoner of conscience” and launched a broad-based “Free Liza” campaign which resulted in her release. Unfortunately, the government refused to reverse her conviction. It wasn’t until 2013 that the Unification Church obtained official registration as a religious association.

True Father understood that women would play a leading role in fostering peace in the Completed Testament Age. Under the auspices of Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), more than 200,000 Korean and Japanese women came together to create sisterly ties on 38 separate occasions between March 11 and November 8, 1994.

The sisterhood ceremonies in the United States between Japanese and American women had a significant impact due to the involvement of persons with exceedingly high public profiles, most notably, former President George H.W. Bush and first lady Barbara Bush. They were deeply touched by their experience and later traveled with True Mother to speak in support of her work on a six-city speaking tour of Japan.

A 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake approximately 43.5 miles off the Japanese coastline on March 11, 2011, triggered a powerful tsunami, with waves reaching heights of up to 133 feet, which, in the area of the city of Sendai, traveled up to 6 miles inland. Referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake, it was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to have hit Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.

The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 8 feet eastward and shifted the Earth on its axis by between 4 and 10 inches.  A Japanese National Police Agency report confirmed 15,889 deaths, 6,152 injured, and 2,601 people missing across twenty prefectures, as well as 127,290 buildings totally collapsed, with a further 272,788 buildings “half collapsed” and another 747,989 buildings partially damaged. The tsunami caused level 7 nuclear meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex, affecting hundreds of thousands of residents in an 18-mile radius who were forced to evacuate. The World Bank’s estimated economic cost was US $235 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in world history.

As a major center of world Unificationism, the Japanese Unification Church was directly impacted by the tsunami. In the immediate aftermath, there were reports of two confirmed deaths. However, Unificationists also lost relatives and homes. Some 300 to 400 Unificationists resided in Sendai, the worst-hit city. More than 500 Unificationists were evacuated to four facilities in Japan. The Japanese Church called for a three-day fast immediately after the earthquake and began relief efforts, delivering food and blankets to survivors. True Father directed the International Church to donate $1.7 million for relief through the Japanese Red Cross. American Unificationists donated $120,000 and partnered with the Christian Disaster Response organization to train Youth Ambassadors for Peace and other volunteers in Japan.

True Father directed a select group of Korean leaders and elders to attend a 40-day workshop at Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center beginning March 12, 1996. The workshop was subsequently extended to 47 days. Afterward, 54 elders were assigned as “national messiahs” to 54 nations. This was the first of several national messiah workshops conducted in 1996. Eventually, quartets of Korean, Japanese, American and European “national messiahs” were assigned. They supplemented or, in most cases, replaced the original missionary teams of Japanese, Americans and Germans who had completed 21 years of missionary service, having been dispatched in 1975.

As the Cheongpyeong activities had begun in earnest a year earlier, the national messiah workshops were significant in supporting that work. Many thousands of Unificationists who were not appointed national messiahs attended later Cheongpyeong workshops for the purpose of spiritual renewal. The national messiah providence built upon True Father’s 1988 declaration of “tribal messiahship” as a goal for Unificationists.
 

The North Korea–South Korea Unification Rally was held in the Main Olympic Stadium in Jamsil, Seoul, on March 12, 2000.

Held on the foundation of similar events held to commemorate True Father’s 80th birthday in 20 Korean cities, it was a national-level event attended by around 120,000 people. In his speech, titled “The Path of Life That Needs to be Trod by God’s Princes and Princesses,” he proclaimed the age of the brotherhood of humankind. (Courtesy of the History Compilation Committee)

On the afternoon of March 13, 1960, in the former headquarters church in Cheongpadong, Seoul, True Father distributed decorative stones that he had collected from beaches as he toured Japan’s Kanto region. He numbered each and every one of them and gave them to 248 members. He told them, “You should keep and cherish this stone that I am giving you and that you are receiving from me, deep in your heart, so that it can become a symbol for the success of your trinities.” In commemoration of the distribution of the stones, the members made groups of three, posed for pictures and received from True Father rice cakes and fruit that he personally distributed. (Courtesy of the History Compilation Committee)

Dr. Bo Hi Pak was the third Unification Church missionary to the United States, arriving on March 14, 1961. Unlike Miss Young Oon Kim and Mr. David S.C. Kim, both of whom had come on student visas, Dr. Pak—who then was known as Col. Pak—came as a diplomat, serving as assistant military attaché at the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C. Like them, he also began witnessing and held Bible study sessions in his home.

In early 1963, he incorporated the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC) in Arlington, Virginia, and was granted a federal tax exemption. The following year he published a translation of the Principle, Outline of Study: The Divine Principles (c. 1964). However, he soon began to move in cultural and public advocacy directions.

In 1962, True Father conceived the idea of forming a Korean children’s dance troupe which would become the Little Angels and asked Dr. Pak to head the initiative. Dr. Pak subsequently created the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation (KCFF) which sponsored the Little Angels’ tours as well as Radio of Free Asia (ROFA). Dr. Pak’s work helped set the pattern for Unificationists’ intercultural and “victory over communism” efforts.

On departing the United States for Europe during his Second World Tour, True Father wrote an open letter to members in Korea. He expressed concern over “news of an unprecedented snowfall in Korea” and wrote he was “happy to say” that True Mother, then pregnant, was “well.” He also noted that after reading letters from “back home … we all become joyful.” The main content of the letter conveyed “something of what I have felt in America during the tour.” After mentioning “many complicated problems” over which “America is in agony,” he wrote:

Contrasting American and Korean members, both have relative merits and demerits. I feel that Oriental customs are conservative, but that they do not break new ground, whereas the West is open, realistic and sociable.

From this, it is possible to say that the former is internal and passive, the latter, external and positive. There is no racial discrimination among Unification Church members. They are noticeably different from other groups. I think the intimate relationship that exists among members is unprecedented in history. It truly shows we are all brothers and sisters with one heart.

When we compare the American membership, comprising several different races, with the Korean membership consisting of one race, the former seem to have very promising prospects.

In saying that, I do not mean that only the West is good. I just think the reason is that America offers its citizens an environment through which they encounter many nations and cultures, and experience much more. Therefore, I hope that the Oriental members will go abroad and keep in frequent contact with other nations in the future.

Two evangelical bus teams, with approximately twenty-five members each, traveled across the United States from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., supporting the witnessing activities of pioneer Unificationists in the various states. Mobile Unit #1 (the northern bus) campaigned in 22 cities and 22 states, traveling a total of 8,400 miles. Mobile Unit #2 (the southern bus) campaigned in 21 cities and 20 states, traveling a total of 7,780 miles. The bus teams spent about a week in each city, and many members joined the church as a result of their efforts. Mr. David S.C. Kim emerged as the One World Crusade’s leading “field general.” He chronicled bus team activities in over 40 reports, under such titles as “Marching across This Great Land to Make It Free,” “One World Crusade Is Marching On” and “Mobile Unit 2 Moves West Coast States.” In December 1972, he was named Executive Director of the One World Crusade.

True Father launched his first U.S. speaking tour since the 1970s, addressing Korean communities in five U.S. cities, beginning in San Francisco on March 17, 1990. The other cities were Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York, and True Father said the five cities represented the 50 states of America.

True Father spoke on the topic “True Unification and One World.” The events were promoted as “Welcoming True Parents Rallies.” They served to introduce True Parents’ activities and thought to Koreans in America and to familiarize the Korean community with the term “True Parents.” True Father had conducted “Welcoming True Parents” rallies in five Korean cities the previous month. These rallies were part of the lead-up to the Moscow Rally in April 1990 and True Parents’ declaration of their roles on the worldwide level.

On June 26, 1991, eight leaders of the Unification Church in Thailand, including the national leader, Dr. Lek Thaveetermsakul, were arrested and jailed under charges of treason. “Crime Suppression Police” subsequently invaded Unification Church centers nationwide. The action was taken under the auspices of Thai army generals who had declared martial law and who were influenced by newspaper attacks on the church.

Treason was understood to mean subversion against the monarchy or nation, and its penalty was life imprisonment or execution. After three months, the case was filed and no bail was allowed. The eight leaders were imprisoned for 21 months, until March 17, 1993, when the king of Thailand took unprecedented action to relieve the top dictatorial general of his duties as head of Thailand, replacing him with a prime minister who formulated a constitutional system. An era of tyranny ended, and friends of the Unification Church of Thailand successfully demanded bail for the eight leaders who were released. However, the case continued for another eight years, until September 1, 2001, when the Thai Supreme Court acquitted the eight of all charges.
 

True Father declared 2007 to be a “Great Jubilee Year” in God’s providence. The major reason for this was the beginning of “The Pacific Rim Era.” In a March 17 speech titled “A Providential View of the Pacific Rim Era in Light of God’s Will—The United States and the Future Direction of the United Nations and the World,” delivered before 700 Unificationist leaders and Ambassadors for Peace on the grounds of “Hawaii King Garden,” a church-owned property on the island of Kona, he stated:

The development of human civilization has completed a circuit of the entire globe and has arrived at the Pacific sphere. Human history has come to a point in time in the providence at which it should reach completion and fruition through the Pacific Rim region. No force can impede the providence now. Though there were both victories and defeats … in the era before heaven, nothing could prevent the rise of the Pacific Rim Era. Herein lies the reason that Heaven declared this a jubilee year.

True Father drew together themes that had been prominent in his thought for some time, including his identity as “the True Parent of humankind,” the fruition of human civilization “in the Pacific Rim region, centered on the Korean Peninsula,” oceans as “the resource on which humanity’s future depends,” the responsibility of the United States “to bring harmony and oneness among the world’s 6.5 billion people and to expedite the creation of a peaceful, ideal world,” the significance of international and cross-cultural Marriage Blessings, and the necessity of  “an ‘Abel-type’ counterpart to the United Nations.” He also proclaimed, “The oceanic era that has begun represents the women’s era.”

True Father delivered the Pacific Rim speech in a “New Civilization” tour covering 24 cities in Korea during April and early May of 2007. His speech, “A Providential View of the Pacific Rim Era in Light of God’s Will—The United States and the Future Direction of the United Nations and the World,” became the foundation for a global “New Civilization” tour. True Mother delivered the same speech in 10 Japanese cities from May 2 to 11.

The American portion of the tour continued through May and June. Unificationists subsequently held “New Civilization” rallies in their respective nations. True Mother and Hyun Jin Moon began the U.S. phase of the tour in late May, delivering the message in twelve U.S. cities, with two of True Parents’ daughters-in-law covering cities in thirty-eight states during May and June 2007.

Hyo Jin Moon, the eldest son of True Parents, died of a heart attack at 9:46 a.m. on March 17 in Seoul, Korea. He was born there on December 3, 1962, but grew up in the United States. For many years he ran Manhattan Center Studios, a state-of-the-art multimedia facility in New York City that was favored by leading musicians and orchestras both for recording and televised events.

He worked for 10 years (1985-94) as the first president of the World Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (World CARP). One of the defining moments of his presidency was the 4th World CARP Convention in Berlin in 1987. Hyo Jin Nim led 1,000 students on a memorable march to the Berlin Wall, where he delivered a stirring speech, calling on Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to be a righteous man and tear down the wall.

He was an intensely passionate singer and lead guitarist who produced over a dozen CDs and a catalog of thousands of compositions. True Parents held a world-level Seonghwa Ceremony and wrote a special calligraphy translated as “He will open and liberate the deepest heaven and turn it into a flower garden as the lord who opens the gates of loyalty and filial piety.” He left his wife, Yun Ah Choi, and four children, as well as five children from a previous marriage.

Arthur Ford (1896-1971) was one of America’s best-known psychics, famous for his sittings with the widow of escape artist Harry Houdini as well as for founding the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship (SFF). He had become aware of True Father through Charles Brooke, the former rajah of Sarawak and himself the leader of an English metaphysical group, who met an early Unificationist missionary and traveled to Korea to meet True Father, whom he regarded as the “earth form of limitless love.”

On March 18, 1965, Ford had a sitting with True Father, accompanied by Col. Bo Hi Pak and others, during True Father’s first world tour. Ford later included “The Sun Myung Moon Sittings” in his work Unknown But Known (1968). During the sitting, Ford’s communicator, Fletcher, stated, “It is not easy for me to get down to the level of Ford. Great power in the form of light—if you were to see the light that surrounds you—most of you would be blinded by it. … In another setting I would insist that my instrument and the rest of you should take off your shoes. But spiritually you can create the humility that will enable you to know that you are in the presence of truth-Incarnate and Discarnate. … Sun Myung Moon is the one I have been talking about.”

True Father was viewed with interest by New Age leaders during the late 1960s. However, with the emergence of the Unification Church as an increasingly well-defined and controversial movement during the 1970s, New Age and spiritualist groups generally ignored or criticized the church.

Gen. Alexander Haig, who as a young officer in the U.S. Army participated in the U.N. military attack on North Korea’s Heungnam labor camp in October 1950 which freed True Father after nearly three years of confinement, passed away on February 20, 2010. Gen. Haig, who was the U.S. secretary of state in 1981 and 1982 under President Ronald Reagan, was a supporter of The Washington Times and participated in Unificationist-organized events.

True Father asked church leaders to attend his funeral services and to place a large gift of flowers at Arlington National Cemetery. A few days later, top church leaders hosted a private memorial dinner at the Sheraton National Hotel attended by General Haig’s son, Alexander P. Haig, who thanked the Unification Church and True Father for their support.

True Father subsequently directed the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) to hold a larger, more public event at the United Nations. Held on March 18, 2010, the “Memorial Festival of Ascension and Unity,” convened in the United Nations Secretariat Building, also honored more than 100 UN personnel killed in a recent Haiti earthquake as well as Rodrigo Carazo, the former president of Costa Rica, who died the previous December, and other peace advocates. The event was highly successful and gave birth to “Legacy of Peace” events elsewhere in the United States and throughout the world. In addition to honoring the recently deceased, the events provided a platform for communicating church views on eternal life and the Marriage Blessing as an instrument of peace.
 

More than 7,000 high school students and their teachers from across the former Soviet Union, attended Divine Principle workshops held during spring break. Twenty-three different workshop sites were used in the Crimea, on the coast of the Black Sea, to accommodate forty workshops. Unificationist missionaries based throughout Eurasia, under the leadership of Dr. Joon Ho Seuk, took on Divine Principle lecturing and other staff responsibilities. Dozens of members from the United States also came to Crimea at their own expense to take part.

The Divine Principle education of 7,229 participants over 22 days set a world record. It would actually be surpassed in the summer of that same year, when, over a period of eight weeks, 18,042 guests (university and high school students and professors) attended 129 workshops held at 26 workshop sites in Latvia, Lithuania, the countryside outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Central Asia.

In Unification tradition, March 21, 1999, is remembered as the day on which Satan surrendered to True Parents. True Father later stated, “In March 1999 Satan surrendered. Because of True Parents Satan could surrender. God could not make Satan surrender. That would violate the Principle. Man gave Satan his power, and only man can make Satan surrender.”

On March 21, 1999, Young Soon Kim, who channeled Dr. Sang Hun Lee’s messages from the spirit world, published three letters of apology from Lucifer to God, True Parents and humankind. These were subsequently included in a volume, Lucifer, A Criminal against Humanity. True Parents are understood to have achieved this in the wilds of the Pantanal region of South America. This was an important step toward the Coronation Ceremony for the Kingship of God and declaration of Cheon Il Guk.

In 1976, the U.S. House Subcommittee on International Organizations, chaired by Rep. Donald Fraser (D-Minnesota) began an investigation into Korean-American Relations and, in particular, the activities of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) in the United States. In 1977, their investigation intensified in the wake of Korean influence-buying on Capitol Hill, referred to as Koreagate.

The Subcommittee was determined to establish a link between the KCIA and the church, the Subcommittee leaked several confidential, unevaluated intelligence documents which led to press reports that the church “was founded by the Director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency … as a political tool in 1961.” However, this allegation was patently false as the Subcommittee’s final report indicated.

The Subcommittee subpoenaed Col. Bo Hi Pak for testimony on several occasions, but may have not been entirely prepared for his responses. In his initial appearance on March 22, 1978, Col. Pak complained bitterly that the Subcommittee was “ostensibly pursuing a probe of the KCIA” but had “given the impression to the world through the press that the United States Congress is investigating the Unification Church of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.” In his second appearance, Col. Pak escalated his rhetoric, stating his belief that the Chairman was “being used as an instrument of the devil.” In his third appearance, Col. Pak charged that Congressman Fraser was “an agent of influence on the Hill for the Soviet Union.”

Col. Pak’s testimony was later published in a volume entitled Truth is My Sword. For its part, the Subcommittee recommended that a U.S. government inter-agency task force investigate the Unification Church. No interagency task force was created, and Congressman Fraser lost in his bid to gain a seat in the U.S. Senate. Nevertheless, his Subcommittee perpetuated a climate of suspicion and hostility in relation to True Father and the Unification Church.

Dr. Sang Hun Lee, author of the Unification Thought (UT) and Victory over Communism (VOC) texts, passed away in Seoul, Korea, on March 22, 1997, at the age of 84. Dr. Lee, a former medical doctor, met the Unification movement in 1956 and was among the 36 couples who were blessed in 1961.

In 1973, Dr. Lee published a philosophical application of Divine Principle titled Unification Thought. This was followed by Explaining Unification Thought (1981), Fundamentals of Unification Thought (1991), and Essentials of Unification Thought (1992). Dr. Lee also authored Communism: A Critique and Counterproposal (1973) and The End of Communism (1985). True Father described these works, along with Divine Principle, as “pillars” of Unificationism.

For all of his intellectual acumen, Dr. Lee was bothered by his inability to clearly answer questions about the spirit world. He devoted himself to a study of the topic and, after his wife’s death in 1989, published excerpts of their correspondence as communicated through Young Soon Kim. He expressed his intention of publishing a complete doctrine of the spirit world but had not done so at the time of his passing. However, afterward Young Soon Kim published an influential volume of Dr. Lee’s messages from the spirit world titled Life in the Spirit World and on Earth (1998). Dr. Lee played a major role in subsequent spirit world messages including A Cloud of Witnesses: The Saints’ Testimonies to the True Parents (2002).

Cheongshim World Peace Center, a massive arena designed to hold 25,000 people near the Unification movement’s Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center, opened on the 53rd True Parent’s Day, March 22, 2012. This completed construction of the largest and most sophisticated multipurpose cultural center in South Korea, eight times larger than the Sejong Performing Arts Center and twice as large as the Olympic Gymnastics Hall.

The highlight of the dedication was a performance of the “Crown of Glory,” a musical based on the life of True Parents. Performed by 60 actresses and actors with support of 150 staff and 60 orchestra performers, the script was developed with help from the research team from Cheong Shim Graduate School of Theology. A mammoth moving and rotating stage with 3D video supported the production. However, True Father emphasized the importance of the arena as a Blessing venue. He noted, “From now, we don’t have to use the Seoul Olympic Stadium; but can use this place to give birth to hundreds of thousands of blessed families here.”

Four hundred leading martial artists, including Grand Masters and masters from the main martial arts schools in 83 nations attended the inaugural convention of the Martial Arts Federation for World Peace (MAFWP) at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. from March 23-27, 1997.

The purpose of the convention and federation was to foster cooperation among the martial art disciplines to provide moral leadership, inspire a moral and spiritual renewal among the world’s young people, and support the establishment of world peace through the development of inner peace. True Father spoke three times at the convention and emphasized “the goal of absolute mind-body unity.” The convention included plenary sessions, breakout meetings, an organizing session, and a public exhibition of martial arts in the Hilton Grand Ballroom attended by 1,500 people including the mayor of Washington, D.C. After being established,  the Martial Arts Federation went on to set up chapters in about 40 different nations. 

The Unification movement conducted six “crown of peace” ceremonies from late 2003 until early 2005. The first of these was the coronation of Jesus as “King of Peace” in Jerusalem as part of the Middle East Peace Initiative on December 22, 2003. Most of the coronations did not generate controversy or significant notice outside of the movement, with the exception of the event at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 23, 2004.

The program was elaborately prepared. Building on contacts established over the years through The Washington Times, the host committee included six congressional co-chairs and a partial listing of the invitational committee included three additional congressmen, as well as one current and one retired U.S. senator, four state senators, a former ambassador. Ninety-one Ambassador for Peace awardees represented all 50 states.  There was a reconciliation ceremony between the three Abrahamic faiths, and one representative each from Jewish, Islamic and Christian traditions were given national-level awards. Several congressmen and ambassadors were given global level leadership awards.

All of this served as a backdrop to True Parent’s crown of peace award which included royal regalia. Following the brief ceremony, True Father delivered a keynote address on “Declaring the Era of the Peace Kingdom.” In an unscripted moment, a Jewish rabbi, inspired by the “miracle” of Jews, Christians and Muslims coming together in reconciliation, came to the microphone and blew a shofar (ram’s horn) signifying the coming of the Messiah.

The awards banquet was a closed event. However, postings on Unification web sites, including a 20-minute video, were picked up by independent bloggers and eventually the mainstream media. On June 23, three months after the event, the Washington Post published a front page article on the banquet. The New York Times reported on the ceremony the same day, noting, “Capitol Hill was in full-blown backpedaling mode, as lawmakers … struggled to explain themselves.”

Unification movement representatives responded forcefully, charging that media accounts were “filled with misrepresentations, distortions and outright falsehoods.” In an official statement, the Interreligous and International Federation for World Peace called for “fair and frank consideration by an unbiased media” of questions raised by the “crown of peace” awards ceremony “before subscribing to the ‘witch hunt’ that this issue has become.”

True Parents conducted a brief dedication ceremony in the chapel of the newly completed Universal Ballet Academy building in Northeast Washington, D.C. on March 24, 1989. The four story structure was restored and expanded by a Washington-based architectural firm. A new addition was constructed to house four large dance studios, equipped with mirrors and barres. Dormitory facilities (32 rooms), locker rooms, and a dining area were also built. Altogether, the Academy was built to house more than 60 boarding students in its dorms, with an additional 100 students in daytime classes.

As patrons of the arts, True Parents had launched several dance institutions previously—including the Little Angels Performing Arts Center in Seoul, Korea, where students are trained at an early age in the fine and performing arts. The Academy hired Oleg Vinogradov to head the school. For the previous 13 years, he was director of the Soviet Union’s famous Kirov Ballet, the alma mater of Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Two days after its formal dedication, Cheongshim World Peace Center served as the venue for a major Holy Marriage Blessing. Officially, the “Blessing Ceremony in the Era to Open the Gates to the Victory, Liberation, and Completion of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind” convened more than 20,000 Unificationists from 54 countries. More than 2,500 couples participated as newlyweds and 1,100 couples participated to “re-affirm” their marital vows. Approximately 100 countries broadcast the ceremony live by satellite while another 92 held their own marriage-Blessing ceremonies with previously-recorded materials.

Due to the impressive venue and the participation of attractive, young Unificationists, the Blessing sparked widespread interest. News outlets from some 100 countries covered the event. The BBC aired a largely supportive special in Britain, titled “Married to the Moonies,” which followed three British youth and their partners as they prepared for and participated in the Blessing. A variation of the BBC version, titled “Getting Married to the Moonies,” aired in the United States. It followed three American youths and their partners.

On Sunday, March 24, 2013, Dr. Martin Porter, a pioneer of the Unification movement in the West, passed away. Dr. Porter was born in Hampshire, the United Kingdom, in 1942 and met the Unification movement in Rome in 1965. He was blessed in marriage by our True Parents in Europe in 1969 as part of the 43 Couples Holy Marriage Blessing that was celebrated in Essen, Germany. One of the earliest Unificationists in Europe, Dr. Porter served for many years as president of the Unification movement in Italy, from 1967 to 1977.

In 1973, he moved to the United States to do evangelical work, including leading a One World Crusade team during True Parents’ Day of Hope speaking tours in 1973 and 1974. Subsequently, Dr. Porter served as the president of the Canadian Unification movement from June 1, 1977 to August 31, 1983. He later was asked to lead a shipbuilding enterprise, Master Marine and IOE Fishing Operations in Bayou la Batre, Alabama.

True Parents established Aewon (Garden of Love) Bank on March 25, 1994, and it was given official approval by the city of Seoul on April 12. It was founded in order to realize True Parents’ vision of true love with special focus on the underprivileged and handicapped. According to Aewon’s statement of purpose: “A bank is where money is deposited. The Aewon Bank is where we deposit our love, service, and charity, however they may be expressed, for the sake of others, so that charity and true love will bring hope, courage and joy to the lives of our neighbors.”

Aewon has developed cultural welfare projects such as Dream Seed Lesson, Dream Seed Concert and Performance Delivery Service. As part of the Dream Seed Lesson, volunteers teach music, art and theater to underprivileged or handicapped children. Then those children take part in a Dream Seed Concert. Volunteers with Performance Delivery Service stage performances on location for people who live in the countryside or are handicapped. The Aewon organization also hosts North Korean art exhibitions and sends books to North Korea. Its volunteers help out in local soup kitchens and assist the elderly.

On March 26, 1994, True Parents hosted Mikhail Gorbachev, a former president of the Soviet Union, at the Hannam-dong training center in Seoul, where they had a meeting. Mr. Gorbachev was in South Korea to attend the Federation for World Peace rally.

True Parents presented Mr. Gorbachev with a portrait and a necktie pin made of Korean jade. During their meeting, Mr. Gorbachev asked True Parents to pay close attention to Russia in the future. On the following day, during the second Federation for World Peace rally in Seoul, True Father gave a speech, “The Fundamental Principle of True Peace,” in which he emphasized, “As we enter the age of internationalization and globalization in the twenty-first century, we are confronted with the urgent task of overcoming a large number of difficult obstacles to world peace.” (Materials provided by the FFWPU History Compilation Committee)

On Saturday, March 26, 2005, the Cheon Seong Gyeong (Holy Scripture) was made available to anyone wishing to convey True Parents’ heart to all people in the world while also inviting anyone to one’s home to participate in Hoondokhae (the daily reading of True Father’s words). The Cheong Seong Gyeong text was put together with the idea of maximizing our spiritual practices in our daily lives and sharing true love and happiness with the world. It is one of eight books that True Father bequeathed to humankind upon his ascension to the Spirit World.

True Mother prepared a prayer for Unificationist youth based on her grandchildren’s education. In her words, “Since Father and I have lived like a war period, I couldn’t have created an environment for my children. But now I am doing the ‘creation of environment’ for my grandchildren. A few days ago, I announced and gave to my grandchildren and all blessed children in the world the ‘Prayer of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.’” She said she would like Unificationist youth to pray the following in the morning and evening:

“Heavenly Parent, I thank you and I love you. I, [one’s name], will become a devoted son (daughter) who will inherit the tradition of true love established by the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, and perfect the duty of a devoted son (or daughter), patriot, and divine son (or daughter). I report this in my name [one’s name], a second generation member of a blessed family, Aju!”

Children and youth who joined recently should end the prayer saying “I report this in my name [one’s name], Aju!”

In February 1977, Unification Theological Seminary (UTS) began hosting Theologians’ Conferences for scholars of religion interested in learning about the Unification movement. These dialogues and others fed into longer conferences on Unification Theology. The conference program caught the interest of True Father, who committed resources to its development.

This led to the founding of the New Ecumenical Research Association (New ERA) and the creation of a twenty-one-member board of consultants who planned conferences, publications and other events “to bring people together ecumenically worldwide.” Hundreds of scholars participated in summer introductory seminars and winter advanced seminars. UTS published some thirty conference books, and New ERA gave birth to a wide range of ecumenical and interreligious organizations including annual “God Conferences,” the Youth Seminar on World Religions (YSWR), the International Religious Foundation, and the Assembly of World Religions.

On the occasion of True Parents’ Day 1990, True Father declared he had “restored the right of parents” and was “sending out tribal messiahs to put everything in order, just as God sent the returning Lord and just as He sent Jesus.” The next step, “restoration of the right of kingship,” he said, “remains.” In True Father’s words:

“Originally, when Adam reached perfection, the Heavenly Father would be perfected, and when Eve reached perfection, the Heavenly Mother would be perfected. Hence, if they become the lord and lady of the family, the kingship of the family-level heavenly kingdom would have arisen. Thus, Adam and Eve were to become king and queen on the level of the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, and world. Since we have reached the time when we can go beyond the national level, we can go beyond the kingship of the satanic world and establish the kingship of the heavenly world.”

On the 18th anniversary of True Parents’ Day, True Father said: “My goal is to make all of you the true parents of your own lineage. It is the greatest honor that I can give to each of you.”

During True Father’s Second World Tour in 1969, True Parents blessed 43 couples in the United States, Germany and Japan, the first Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony conducted outside Korea. The 43 Couple Marriage Blessing was conducted on the foundation of the 430 Couple Marriage Blessing held by True Parents in Korea the previous year and signified expansion to the worldwide level.

The Blessing in Germany, the second phase of the Blessing, joined couples from England and America, Holland and America, Holland and Germany, England and Italy, Germany and Austria in international marriages. National leaders from Korea, Japan, America, England, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany were either blessed or present at the ceremony. The 43 Couple Blessing was foundational for the 777 Couple Marriage Blessing in 1970 and the globalization of True Parent’s ministry.
 

True Father had been actively pursuing opportunities in South America since 1992 and made the decision to make South America a focal point of his work in 1995. That year, he undertook an ambitious speaking tour of twenty-three Latin American nations, which included audiences with eight heads of state. In these speeches and meetings, he emphasized the region’s “stunning and abundant potential.” He stated, “Latin America is a rich, peaceful, natural paradise of grandiose mountains and virgin lands. The mountains, rivers and jungles hearken back to the original state of creation, the Garden of Eden.” True Father pushed the heads of state to donate contiguous lands for development “as a model for an ideal, international and interracial nation and world.”

When that was not forthcoming, Unificationists  began purchasing vast tracts of land in the South American interior and established New Hope Farm outside the town of Jardim (pop. 21,000) in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul as the centerpiece of their efforts.

True Father made two declarations to launch this initiative. The Sao Paulo Declaration, delivered on the occasion of True Parents’ Day, March 31, 1995, called on Unification Church members worldwide to inherit True Parents’ tradition of “loving the earth, loving all things, loving all humankind and loving God, single-mindedly for the realization of God’s will.” The New Hope Farm Declaration, delivered on April 3, 1995, declared that “people of the world will come together as brothers and sisters here and practice the building of God’s nation.” True Father delivered additional declarations as the South American providence developed during the late 1990s.