Since 1997, the movement known as the Unification Church is officially called Family Federation for World Peace and Unification
Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, who has claimed that when after he dies he “will continue to lead the church from the spirit world,” has died.
Moon believed himself to be sinless, and that he was the true father of mankind. Believing that Jesus had failed in his mission, Moon also declared himself to be the Messiah.
A court in Kyrgyzstan has ruled that the Unification Church can no longer operate on Kyrgyz territory.
Said to be a ‘danger to national security,’ the ban appears to have been prompted by reports over Kyrgyz national who was allegedly ‘tortured’ over his refusal to join the cult.
One of South Korea’s landmark foreign investment projects — a $2bn deal to build skyscrapers designed by British architect Richard Rogers — has prompted a bitter legal challenge from a branch of the Unification Church, often known as the Moonies, who own the land.
Some 7,200 South Korean and foreign couples exchanged or reaffirmed marriage vows Sunday in the Unification Church‘s second mass wedding this year.
Critics say the mass weddings prove the church is a cult that brainwashes its followers.
Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon is regaining control of the Washington Times after allies of the South Korean cult leader agreed to acquire the paper for just $1 and assumption of most if its debts, according to an internal memo.
The memo contradicts rumors that a feud among the Moon’s sons over control of the Washington Times prompted the father to buy it back for tens of millions of dollars.
The deal is financially similar to the one the Washington Post cut in selling its money-losing Newsweek to businessman Sidney Harmon.
Paul Bedard details the deal — and the internal feuding in the Moon family — in U.S. News & World Report. Mind you, he also writes that Moon “started the newspaper in 1982 as a conservative and Christian voice in Washington.” Theologians know that the Unification Church is, at best, a cult of Christianity. As such, it is impossible for the paper to provide a “Christian voice.”
A religious sect has been granted planning permission to create a burial ground in a village near Swindon, UK.
The Family Federation For World Peace And Unification, more commonly known as the Moonies, can now turn a field in Stanton Fitzwarren into a memorial woodland burial site, despite objections from the parish council, the local councillor and villagers.
With cult leader Sun Myung Moon turning 90 in February, how the movement will survive beyond him is unclear. Moon’s children are at odds over how to run the church’s business empire.
Some second-generation Unification Church members are now looking for a less-radical version of their faith.
Nearly a half-century after the Rev. Sun Myung Moon performed his first mass wedding, the 89-year-old leader of the Unification Church is getting ready to marry off tens of thousands of people in spectacles from the United States to South Korea.
Critics who accuse the church of engaging in cultlike practices say the mass weddings prove it brainwashes its followers.
The Rev Sun Myung Moon, now approaching 90 and still one of the world’s most controversial religious figures, is handing over day-to-day control of his Unification Church to his sons.
Critics maintain the Rev Moon is little more than a charismatic cult leader who brainwashes followers.
Still, some analysts say that by anointing a new generation, Moon may ensure the church endures after his death.
Four members of a seal stamp company in Osaka, Japan have been arrested for intimidating customers into buying expensive products.
The suspects — whose company is connected to the Unification Church, a religious cult — contacted three women through fortune-telling services and threathened them over many hours.