Moon, Sun Myung

born Jan. 6, 1920, Kwangju Sangsa Ri, P'yŏngan-puk province, Korea

South Korean religious leader.

Convinced that he was designated by God as a successor to Jesus, Moon began to preach a new religion, loosely based on Christianity, in North Korea in 1946. After being imprisoned by North Korean authorities, he escaped or was released and went to South Korea, where he founded the Unification Church in 1954 and built a multimillion-dollar business empire. In 1973 he moved his headquarters to Tarrytown, N.Y., U.S., where he became the focus of controversies over fund-raising techniques, tax evasion, and the indoctrination of followers (popularly called Moonies). In 1982 Moon was convicted of tax evasion, sentenced to 18 months in prison, and fined $25,000. He has also suffered from a damaging exposé by his daughter-in-law. In the 1990s the church began operations in Brazil, where its purchase of large tracts of rainforest has been widely criticized.

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▪ Korean religious leader

born Jan. 6, 1920, Kwangju Sangsa Ri, P'yŏngan-puk province, Korea [now in North Korea]

      Korean evangelist who in 1954 founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, better known as the Unification Church.

      In his book The Divine Principle (1952), which is the basic scripture of the church, Moon wrote that at the age of 16 he had a vision of Christ in which he was told to carry out Christ's unfinished task. Moon believed that God chose him to save mankind from Satanism, and he regarded Communists as Satan's representatives in the world.

      Moon began to preach his doctrines in Korea in 1946. Two years later he was excommunicated by the Presbyterian Church, and shortly thereafter he was imprisoned by the North Korean authorities for reasons that are not entirely clear. In 1950 he escaped—or was released—and fled to South Korea, where he founded what was to become the Unification Church. He built his Korean and Japanese enterprises, which included factories that produced armaments, paint, machinery, and ginseng tea, into a multimillion-dollar empire, and in the early 1970s he began full-scale missionary operations in the United States. As young people were drawn into the movement, Moon incurred widespread hostility from the parents of followers, who believed that their children had been unfairly indoctrinated. Other controversies also mounted over the movement's fund-raising techniques, as well as over immigration issues and tax manipulation.

      Moon and his wife were addressed as Father and Mother by disciples, for whom the two epitomize God's ideal family. In 1973 the Moons moved their headquarters to Tarrytown, N.Y., operating from there an international network of businesses. In 1982 Moon was convicted of tax evasion, sentenced to 18 months in prison, and fined $25,000; he went to prison in 1984.

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