Chapter 2 The Unification Movement in Korea

1994 - The Safe Settlement of True Parents and the Completed Testament Age

The year 1994 was the 6th year of the second seven year course of the second 21-year course (1981-2002). With the beginning the of the Completed Testament Age, and with Reverend and Mrs. Moon having emerged as True Parents in 1993, 1994 was a providential and historic year of victory. Additionally, 1994 was the fortieth year since the founding of HSA-UWC, a glorious occasion following hardship and struggle.

Forty years earlier, a group of people centered on Reverend Moon had set out to the world under the flag of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Reverend Moon overcame all difficulties for the sake of God. Then, having accomplished God's will, and having proclaimed True Parents in forty nations around the world (through Mrs. Moon's 1993 speaking tour), he welcomed the new year of 1994 on a glorious day.

This year, Reverend and Mrs. Moon gave members the motto, The Safe Settlement of True Parents and the Completed Testament Age, expressing the wish that they would make 1994 the first year of the building of a new ideal world centered on the family. Reverend Moon prayed at midnight:  

"Because the Christian world could not attend the True Father, we lost in one moment the foundation of all Your hard work for the sake of bringing about the age in which the 4,000-year historical course if indemnity filled with suffering could be consummated, and heaven and earth could move forward into one unified world of peace. There remained, then, a forty-year period filled with suffering during which the four thousand year of history had to be re indemnified. Whereas this will could have been accomplished between 1945 and l952, it was prolonged for forty years until, centering on 1992, a foundation of victory was established centering on Mother so that she could represent the realm of Eve. We thank You that the liberation of women could be declared in all countries, that all countries could be connected to each other in a relationship of heart, and that it was possible to transcend the highest position centering on nations and states, so that we could receive this Completed Testament Age and the age of True Parents in accordance with Your will."

After a service commemorating the Day or Victory of Love, held a Hannam-dong official residence on January 2, Reverend and Mrs. Moon explained about the era of unified mind and body, of humankind unified through true love, true life and true blood lineage. They also emphasized that the Four Great Realms of Heart (son and daughter, brother and sister, husband and wife, parents) and the Three Great Kingships (kingship of grandparents, kingship of parents, kingship of children) should be accomplished.

Reverend and Mrs. Moon visited Cheju Island on January 4 and gave training to representatives of forty nations, including the United States, under the title "Find Your Self." Reverend Moon also spoke at the opening session for the Japanese women leaders' special workshop, and heard reports from overseas missionaries. They returned to Seoul on January 10.

Several days later on January 14, at Hannam-dong official residence, Mrs. Moon awarded plaques to representatives of forty-three countries, to celebrate and congratulate them on the victory of Mrs. Moon's WFWP rallies in forty countries, and for the tours in Korea, Japan, and the United States.

Up until February 4, when they left Korea, Reverend and Mrs. Moon attended various programs including missionary workshops  and a reception for Japanese women in honor of the fifth anniversary of the launching of the Se-gye Ilbo.

Broad changes were made throughout the Tong-Il Group management at the beginning of the year.

Sang-kook Han, vice president of the Foundation was appointed as president of Tong-Il Heavy Industries; Ju-chan Choi, vice president of Il Hwa, was appointed to head the Il-Shin Stone Company; Jin-ha Kim was appointed to head Il Hwa; Su-kyung Lee, president of Il-Shin Stone Company, was appointed president of Samjong Corporation, Jae-un Jung, president of Il-Sung Leisure, was appointed to head Seil Travel; Jae-hun Lyu was appointed president of Namjeon, and Mrs. Gil-ja Sa was appointed president of the Women's Federation for World Peace in Korea.

In addition, Young-whi Kim, Hwanchae Hwang, Chang-jae Kim, Won-bok Chio, Jung-ok Lee, Sae-hwa Chung, Kyung-nam Kim and Jung-hee Kee were appointed as world itinerary workers in Japan (former missionaries: Jong-young Ryu, Sung-il Kim, Won-pil Kim, Myung-dae Kim, and Hyun-shil Kang), a turning point in the general organization and that of the companies.

On February 1, a meeting for Tong-Il Group leaders at the Headquarters Church in Chungpa-dong was attended by 520 members including regional leaders, CARP regional leaders, CARP center leaders, model members working in their hometown, district leaders who had graduated from university, other district leaders, and company presidents. After speaking on the subject of "Unification and Our Mission" Reverend Moon drew lots to decide 131 missionary candidates to be sent out to 131 mission countries where no Korean missionary was present. Sixteen hundred Japanese women were also selected to be sent to 160 countries ( ten to each), representing Mrs. Moon.

Sun Hwa University changed its name into Sun Moon University as of March 1, and a reshuffle of positions appropriate to the change was made. On February 2, Hoon-sook Moon was assigned chief director of the Sun Hwa Educational Foundation, replacing Dr. Bo-hi Pak.

The 1994 national meeting of university students was held from January 23 to 25 at the Central Training Center in Sutaek-ri, attended by about four hundred students. At the meeting, convened under the theme, "A New Wave of University Students Toward the Twenty-first Century," participants gave presentations about their CARP activities and discussed ways to activate the movement on university campuses. The twenty-ninth general meeting of Sung Hwa students was held attended by about one thousand representatives nationwide from January 21 to 23. The theme was "1994, the Year of Safe Settlement of the HARP Movement."

Reverend and Mrs. Moon flew to America on February 4, and returned to Korea an March 7. On March 10, they attended the official ceremony to mark the reconstruction and re-opening of the Central Training Center. Reverend Moon spoke to the first group of participants of the second training series for 50,000 Japanese women representatives, until 3:15 in the morning. He remained in the Central Training Center, without taking even one day's break, until departing for America on April 13. He continued to speak to the Japanese women who came for training, and attended the sisterhood program. During his busy schedule, he also made time to attend the opening of the grand auditorium of the Central Training Center and a special meeting for members in Seoul and the surrounding areas on March 13.

Reverend Moon spoke at the Second World Peace Conference, spanning four days from March 26. Present and former heads of state, including former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, former British prime minister Sir Edward Heath, and two hundred other distinguished participants from sixty countries attended the conference. Participants discussed a variety of themes including the rebuilding of the world order, the recovery of the environment for the 21st century, the unification of the Korean peninsula and the role of international society.

Mrs. Moon began her lecture tour of one hundred American universities from March 18. With her final lecture at Yale University on the 22nd, Mrs. Moon passed the baton to her children and returned to Korea on March 24. There, she attended the World Peace Conference. With the opening of the second year of the Completed Testament Age, the providence was unfolding like a panorama before the members' eyes.

Reverend and Mrs. Moon flew to America on April 13, and two weeks later on April 28, returned to Korea to preside over the Congress of the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace and the commemorative ceremony for the 40th Anniversary of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC) on May 1.

On March 11, the US Congress unanimously passed a resolution to designate and proclaim July 28 (and in subsequent years, the fourth Sunday in July) as "Parents' Day." This was influenced by Mrs. Moon's Capitol Hill speech on that date the previous year, as part of her tour of forty-four American cities, on which occasion the emphasized the importance of the family and sacrificial love. The resolution mentions that the recognition of Parents' Day would contribute to "uplifting and supporting the role of parents in the rearing of their children."

The church held a spring workshop for church leaders from April   13 to 15 at the Central Training Center, in which six hundred leaders participated. The workshop was a scene of harmony and excitement, having as its purpose the inheritance of Reverend and Mrs. Moon's victorious tradition, the connecting of the victory of the first sisterhood program between Korean and Japanese women to the education of heavenly people, and the confirmation of the status of church leaders on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of HSA-UWC.

A commemorative celebration was held at the Seoul Olympic Gymnasium at ten o'clock in the morning on May 1, the day marking the fortieth anniversary of the founding of HSA-UWC.

The founders, Reverend  and Mrs. Moon, and many notable people from both at home and abroad, attended the celebration, the theme of which was Establishment of a World of Shimjung Culture.

In his speech, Reverend Moon reflected that the forty years since he had founded the Unification Church had been a road of hardship amid persecution and misunderstanding. He expressed that it was human beings' responsibility to become

"...true parents in the family, then to fulfill their mission as tribal messiahs the true parents of their tribe."

Furthermore, that:

"We gave to become the religion that embodies and practices the heart of true parents in order to realize God's will in this world of convict, hatred and evil."

To mark the occasion, the Korean-language version of World Scripture and a pictorial volume of the forty-year history of the Unification Church were published.

The Congress for the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace and an International Symposium of the Professors World Peace Academy (PWPA) were held at the Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel from April 28 to May 1, attended by intellectuals from around the world, thus heightening the mood of celebration.

Reverend and Mrs. Moon left for America again on May 3, returning to Korea ten days later. They again spent many busy days working for the Korean and Japanese women sisterhood program.

On May 24 they began the first engagement ceremony in preparation for the 360,000-couple International Holy Wedding. They presided over  some changes in public responsibilities on May 19 at the grand auditorium of the Central Training Center, an event attended by four hundred leaders from the church, CARP and other church-related organizations.

In his speech, Reverend Moon emphasized the coming of a new era and a change in the system. He spoke of his plan to set up three thousand churches across the nation within 1994, and launched an Education Department (Director: Joong-su Kim).

He created the Family Federation for Unification and World Peace and appointed Reverend and Mrs. Won-pil Kim to be its first president. Reverend Moon ordered the current regional leaders to receive further education at the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS), and thirty-nine of them were assigned to world missions.

According to Reverend Moon's request, the church made further personnel changes, including the appointment of Jong-ho Im to head the General Affairs Department on June 1.

Special two-day training sessions for blessed couples were held under the general supervision of Won-pil Kim and Young-whi Kim, from May 14 in South Kyungsang province to August 27 in the northern part of Seoul.

Under the auspices of World CARP, Korean CARP organized the international Student Seminar on Science and Peace in Beijing, from June 21 to 26. The theme of the seminar was The Role of Youth in a Time of Global Change and about 170 students representing twenty countries participated. That university students from North Korea attended the seminar, an unprecedented happening since the division of the Korean Peninsula, made it a historic event. Nineteen students, including Chul-soon Lim, majoring in philosophy at Kim Il Sung University, said that they attended the seminar after having received approval directly from Kim Jong-il, secretary of the Workers' Party of North Korea. The students from North and South Korea seemed to feel uncomfortable with each other during the sub-sessions and engaged in some sort of rivalry at first. As time passed by, however, they drew closer in accordance with the saying "Blood is thicker then water," thus earning the envy of the other students present at the Great Hall of the People.

Following the successful conclusion of the Korean-Japanese sisterhood program, a group of eighty-one Korean woven further strengthened their friendship by attending a friendship meeting for Japanese and Korean women in Japan. It marked an important starting point to resolving the bitter historical feelings between the two countries through the power of true love.

On July 28 the annual training for church leaders' wives was held for three days at Chungpyung Training Center. There was also a summer training workshop for church leaders (July 17 to 20), the Summer Faith Camp for junior and senior high school students from blessed families (July 25 to 28) and education for beginning family life for 30,000-couple members who had completed their mobilization (July 2), at Chung-pyung.

The graduation ceremony of the second Principle class and the enrollment ceremony for the third, under the House of Unification and World Peace, were held in a WFWP lecture room at the Segye Ilbo complex on September 8. In all, twenty people graduated under the leadership of Mrs. Gil-ja Sa, president of the Women's Federation and Joong-su Kim, director of the Education Department. With their gentleness and feminine image, they will be in charge of Principle education in the women's era.

Reverend and Mrs. Moon returned to Korea on October 4, approximately one hood program fro Korean and Japanese women, beginning from October 4.

A sisterhood relationship ceremony for Korean-Japanese Women was held on October 4 at the grand auditorium of the Central Training Center, at which hundred days after departing for the United States on June 20. In America, they had educated representative leaders from each country. They had presided at the Inaugural Conference for the Youth Federation for World Peace on July 26, and presided over the August 1 celebration to mark the twentieth anniversary of "Ocean Church." Their visit to Korea was for the sake of the continuing sisterhood Mrs. Moon gave words of encouragement. After the ceremony, there was a celebration party, during which Korean and Japanese women danced together hand in hand. Without speaking even once at other meetings or on Sunday mornings since arriving on October 4, they devoted themselves exclusively to the Japanese women trainees for fifty days. After sixteen rounds of the sisterhood program that included special training, they gathered five thousand WFWP members at the Central Training Center on November 20 for a meeting to celebrate the victorious sisterhood program that had created 160,000 Korean-Japanese sister relationships. This concluded, they departed for America on November 23.

The church administration was subject to a minor restructuring on November 21. The Photographic Department and the Audio-Visual Office, which had come under the General Affairs Department, were transferred to the Culture Department. On December 1, the Student Department was divided into the University Section and the Elementary, Middle and High School Section. The University Section was assigned to take charge of campus  activities and witnessing. The Elementary, Middle and High School Section was given the task of overseeing Kindergarten, plus elementary, middle and high school student activities and witnessing.