Thousands of people fill the stadium at the Cheong Shim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, Korea on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, for the seonghwa, or ascension, ceremony, known as the traditional funeral in western terms, for the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Some 15,000 people fit into the stadium, where the funeral was held, with another 10,000 to 15,000 expected to be watching live simulcasts around the complex. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Hak Ja Han, Rev. Sun Myung Moon's widow, sits in one of two seats reserved for the "True Parents," with the other one being empty, during the seonghwa, or ascension, ceremony, known as the traditional funeral in western terms, for Rev. Moon on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, at the Cheongshim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, Korea. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Grandson Shin Jun, left, and Kwon Jin Moon, one of the sons of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, carry in a portrait of the spiritual leader at the beginning of the seonghwa, or ascension, ceremony, known as the traditional funeral in western terms, Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, at the Cheong Shim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, Korea. Thousands of mourners from countries around the world came to witness the event and say goodbye to the head of the Unification Church. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
This flower arrangement was sent by Kim Jung-Un following the death of Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Although the church asked that no flowers be sent, they have received hundreds of arrangements, which are all on display Cheong Shim Peace World Center in Gapyeong-gun, Korea, on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
The body of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon lies at the palace in the Cheong Shim Peace World Center in Gapyeong-gun, Korea, on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012. Mourners are invited to come pay tribute to the "True Father," offering him prayers and paying respect to his family. His 13-day mourning period culminates on Saturday with an official funeral service. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Dr. Bo Hi Pak told The Washington Times on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 that he believes the Unification Church is "going to grow by leaps and bounds" following the death of founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon. He says that members are determined to live up to the reverend's expectations, and that he personally will "do as much as I can until I die to serve Rev. Moon and Mrs. Moon." He said he never saw the reverend waiver in his mission. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Family members of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, including (in white) eldest daughter Ya-Jin stand at left waiting to greet mourners bowing at right after placing flowers on a table below a portrait of the reverend. The family members rotate throughout the day but are present from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. to greet mourners as they come to the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex near Seoul, Korea to pay tribute to the late reverand, who founded the Unification Church. The official funeral service will be held this Saturday. This image was made Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners bow after placing flowers on a table as an offering to pay tribute to the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon while, at left, family members wait to greet the mourners. Thousands of people have traveled to the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex outside of Seoul, Korea to pay tribute to the founder of the Unification Church. A funeral will be held on Saturday. This image was made Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners place flowers (lilies for the mother and roses for the father) on a table inside the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center near Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 to honor the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church. His 13-day funeral ends Saturday with a ceremony honoring his life followed by the burial. According to officials, they had to import flowers from Japan because they could not get enough in Korea. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
An usher shows mourners the way to place flowers (lilies for the mother and roses for the father) at a table inside the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex outside of Seoul, Korea in honor of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Thousands of mourners have come to the complex to pay their respects for the founder of the Unification Church over the past several days. His 13-day funeral will culminate in a ceremony on Saturday in which some 30,000 are expected to attend. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
A mourner signs an electronic guest book at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex before going in to offer a flower and greet family members of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Thousands of mourners have come to the complex near Seoul, Korea over the last few days to pay tribute to the reverend, who founded the Unification Church. The official funeral services will be held on Saturday. Some 30,000 are expected to attend. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
An usher indicates a place where mourners carrying flowers should pause before approaching a long table to place the flowers at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training complex outside of Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Thousands of mourners have passed through the complex in the last few days to pay tribute to the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church. The mourners placed flowers (lilies for the mother and roses for the father) as part of the tribute. According to officials, they had to import flowers from Japan because they could not get enough in Korea. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Ho-yeul Ahn, general manager of the public relations division of the Tongil Group, who was authorized by Hyung-jin Moon to speak on behalf of the Unification Church, told The Washington Times on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, that he believes the church will only get bigger and stronger following the death of founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Ushers hold open a curtain that leads into a room to watch a video presentation on the life of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon inside the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex near Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Thousands of mourners have come over the past few days to pay tribute to the reverend. Once inside the complex, they first watched the video on his life, then signed in electronically before being given flowers to offer and the chance to write a remembrance on a special wall. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
A young boy waits with his mother to place flowers on a table inside the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex outside of Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 to honor the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Mourners placed flowers (roses for the father and lilies for the mother) on a table and then bowed before family members. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Counselor Minha Kim, president of the Advisory Council on Korean Unification, spoke with The Washington Times on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 about the funeral services for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in Korea. Mr. Kim helped to organize the funeral services. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Signs in all languages honoring the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon have been hung on the road to the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex near Seoul, Korea to pay tribute to the father of the Unification Church. The official funeral services will be held Saturday, Sept. 15. Thirty thousand mourners from around the world are expected to attend. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners sign an electronic guest book at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex before going in to offer a flower and greet family members of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Thousands of mourners have come to the complex near Seoul, Korea over the last few days to pay tribute to the reverend, who founded the Unification Church. The official funeral services will be held on Saturday. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
A mourner sits down near several flower arrangements at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex near Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Although the announcement of the death of Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon asked for no flowers, hundreds of these tribute flowers have poured into the complex over the last week. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners watch a video slideshow with photographs of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex near Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Since thousands of mourners have come to pay tribute to the reverend, they ask them to watch this slideshow, then a video on the reverend's life and then go down to offer flowers and greet the family. This way the complex does not get overly crowded. They expect 30,000 to attend the funeral services on Saturday. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners leave the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center stadium outside of Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 after offering flowers and greeting the family of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The official funeral ceremony will be held Saturday. Some 30,000 people are expected to attend. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners file past some of the hundreds of flower arrangements sent to honor the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, including this all-white arrangement at far right sent by the president of South Korea. The official funeral will be held here at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex outside of Seoul, Korea on Saturday. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners write messages for the family of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon inside the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex near Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. These message walls are filled and must be replaced every day, according to officials. They will later be moved to the museum, which is inside the palace building on the complex. The church currently has members in 194 countries around the world. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
A volunteer hands a rose to a mourner at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 so that the mourner can place it as an offering on a table beneath a portrait of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Thousands of mourners have come to the complex near Seoul, Korea to pay their respects to the reverend, who founded the Unification Church. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners stand in line outside the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex outside of Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 to pay tribute to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Traditional Korean funerals last three days, but the reverend's funeral will go for 13 days. It culminates Saturday, Sept. 15 with a SeongHwa Ceremony, which is considered the final farewell ceremony before burial. They are expecting some 30,000 people to attend. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Mourners file past a portrait of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon as they prepare to offer flowers in tribute to him at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center complex near Seoul, Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. The 13-day memorial will culminate Saturday with a funeral service. Officials are expecting to completely fill the 30,000-person stadium. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)
Family members of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, including (in white) eldest ... more >GAPYEONG, South Korea — The Unification Church is strongly positioned to preserve and expand both its global spiritual outreach and its commercial holdings as tens of thousands of believers gather to say a final goodbye to founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon, two top church officials said in interviews here this week.
Acknowledging the religious movement founded in 1954 faces an unprecedented time of transition, the officials said Rev. Moon left clear lines of authority, both on the theological and business side, well before his death at a church-run complex here Sept. 2 of complications from pneumonia.
After an extended 13-day mourning period, the reverend’s funeral will be held Saturday at the full-sized sports and cultural center recently constructed on the church’s Cheongpyeong Holy Ground campus in the hills northeast of the capital of Seoul.
Representatives from the church’s 12 regions and the 194 countries in which it operates are set to attend a Sept. 17 gathering two days after the ceremony in Gapyeong to hear from Hak Ja Han, Rev. Moon’s wife of 52 years and possibly from Rev. Hyung-jin Moon, the founder’s 33-year-old youngest son and spiritual successor, who has been the church’s top religious director since 2008.
Another of the Rev. Moon’s sons, 42-year-old Rev. Kook Jin Moon, has been tapped to head the Tongil Group, the South Korean business collective that oversees the church’s commercial interests in North and South Korea, the United States and around the world, including hotels, carmakers, real estate and the media group that includes The Washington Times.
The main legacy of Rev. Moon’s work “has been inherited by his wife,” Ho-yeul Ahn, general manager for the Tongil Group and the designated spokesman for Hyung-jin Moon, said through a translator. “Mrs. Moon will now be fully filling Rev. Moon’s shoes.”
Unification Church adherents have “almost entirely agreed to this type of structure and personnel,” he added.
Mr. Ahn said the church’s new spiritual leader, who was born in the United States and has earned degrees from Harvard and Harvard Divinity School, shares his father’s work ethic and devotional discipline, church insiders say.
Discord and infighting have not been unknown among Rev. Moon’s 10 children, in large part over the disposition of the Unification Church’s many business ventures.
Press accounts here reported that members of the mourning party of Hyun Jin “Preston” Moon, the founder’s third eldest son who has clashed with other family members about the church’s financial interests, were blocked from attending the wake earlier this week to pay their respects to Rev. Moon. The group reportedly sang and prayed outside the site before leaving without incident.
In a statement released through his Global Peace Foundation this week, Preston Moon laid the blame for divisions in the family over the future of the church on his brothers, announcing he would not attend Saturday’s memorial service because it will “try to legitimate an idea of [Rev. Moon‘s] legacy that has nothing to do with the principles he lived by.”
“I am now walking a separate path and have no part in any support ‘succession struggle’ within the Unification movement,” he added. “… I shall continue to use the resources available to me to further that work.”
A new era
Of the church’s transitional period, Mr. Ahn noted that the real growth of Christianity in its earliest days came after the death of Jesus on the cross, when a new generation of followers rose to spread his teachings.
“It grew as a faith much more quickly than when he was on the earth teaching and praying. Jesus’ ministry became a spiritual phenomenon only after his teaching mission was fully completed,” Mr. Ahn said.
View Entire Story© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Raised in Northern Virginia, David R. Sands received an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He worked as a reporter for several Washington-area business publications before joining The Washington Times.
At The Times, Mr. Sands has covered numerous beats, including international trade, banking, politics ...
By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
How does our 50th state view D.C. politics?
"Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make your thinking better." - Dr. Richard Paul
Life lessons, adventures, people places and observations as I undertake my personal quest to travel to 100 or more countries before I die.
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
13 Photos
Vietnam Memorial adds four names
18 Photos
Cinco de Mayo on the Mall
11 Photos
NRA kicks off annual convention
8 Photos
California wildfires wreak havoc
37 Photos
