Blessing Ceremony
Encyclopedia
The Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church is a wedding
or marriage rededication ceremony sponsored by the Unification Church
. It is given to married (or engaged) couples. Through it, members of the Unification Church believe, the couple is removed from the lineage of sin
ful humanity and engrafted into God’s sinless lineage. As a result the couple’s marital relationship—and any children born after the Blessing—exist free from the consequences of original sin
. (Children born into Blessed families are known as Blessed Children or second generation.)
For Unificationists, these interracial, interreligious and international mass marriage ceremonies symbolize the family as the hope for peace
.
, a leading Unificationist scholar, wrote:
, South Korea
by Reverend and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon
shortly after their own marriage in 1960. All the couples were members of the Unification Church. Rev. Moon matched all of the couples except the 12 who were already married to each other from before joining the church, which was officially founded in 1954.
Later Blessing ceremonies were larger in scale but followed the same pattern with all participants Unification Church members and Rev. Moon matching most of the couples. In 1982 the first large scale Blessing held outside of Korea took place in Madison Square Garden
in New York City
. In 1988, Moon matched 2,500 Korean members with Japanese members for a Blessing ceremony held in Korea, partly in order to promote unity between the two nations.
The Blessing ceremonies have attracted a lot of attention in the press and in the public imagination, often being labeled "mass weddings". However, in most cases the Blessing ceremony is not a legal wedding
ceremony. Some couples are already married and those that are engaged are later legally married according to the laws of their own countries. The New York Times referred to a 1997 ceremony for 28,000 couples as a "marriage affirmation ceremony," adding: "The real weddings were held later in separate legal ceremonies."
and Islam
have served as "co-officiators" at Blessing ceremonies presided over by Rev. and Mrs. Moon.
In 1997 Rev. and Mrs. Moon presided over a Blessing ceremony in Washington D. C. in which 28,000 of the 30,000 couples taking part were previously married, including controversial Baptist
minister and civil rights advocate Al Sharpton
and his wife Katherine. A 2000 ceremony included couples in North Korea
. In 2001 Roman Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo
married Maria Sung, a Korean acupuncturist, in a Blessing ceremony presided over by Rev. and Mrs. Moon. In the same ceremony George Augustus Stallings
, founder of the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation
, married Sayomi Kamimoto, a Japanese Unification Church member. At the same ceremony was Minister Benjamin Muhammad, the national director of the Million Man March
and the Million Family March
and a representative of Louis Farrakhan
's Nation of Islam
. Former Uganda
n President Godfrey Binaisa
married a young Japanese
woman by the Blessing ceremony in 2004. At that time, Godfrey was 84 years old.
Since 2001 couples Blessed by Moon have been able to arrange marriages for their own children, without his direct guidance. In 2009 the Moons held a Blessing ceremony for 40,000 couples which was expected to be the last personally officiated by them.
Couples taking part in Blessing ceremonies exchange these four vows:
reported that some Unification Church members were dismayed and grumbled when Moon extended the Blessing to non-members because they had not gone through the same course that members had.
The Blessing ceremony figured in the plot of Don DeLillo
's 1991 novel Mao II
. In 2007 the British television network Channel 4
aired a documentary film, My Big Fat Moonie Wedding, about some of the participants in the 1982 Blessing ceremony of over 2,000 couples which took place in Madison Square Garden
. In in his 2009 autobiography, Tahoe Boy: A Journey Back Home, Pat Hickey
, a state representative in Nevada
and former Unification Church member who took part in the same ceremony, wrote about his experience of being matched to his future wife by Moon.
Wedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
or marriage rededication ceremony sponsored by the Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
. It is given to married (or engaged) couples. Through it, members of the Unification Church believe, the couple is removed from the lineage of sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
ful humanity and engrafted into God’s sinless lineage. As a result the couple’s marital relationship—and any children born after the Blessing—exist free from the consequences of original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
. (Children born into Blessed families are known as Blessed Children or second generation.)
For Unificationists, these interracial, interreligious and international mass marriage ceremonies symbolize the family as the hope for peace
Peace
Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...
.
Purpose
Frank KaufmannFrank Kaufmann
Frank Kaufmann is the director of the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace . He is editor in chief of the IRFWP's academic journal Dialogue and Alliance, which in 2004 was named as one of the top ten religion journals by an independent panel commissioned by the American Theological Library...
, a leading Unificationist scholar, wrote:
We do not have mass weddings because Reverend Moon doesn't know any better, doesn't know how Americans react to things, or that he stubbornly adheres to some odd Korean habit. Our matchings and weddings are a direct and perfect manifestation of a profound theology and world view. You see, Unificationists believe that all the problems on Earth, from the Gulf War, to child abuse, to the crumbling school system (you name it) are fruits of the fact that self interest crept in to the family, the love between husband and wife, reproductive affairs, and parent child relationships, thus since the beginning there has never been even one family whose members were not dominated by some significant degree of self interest.
Blessings of church members
The Blessing ceremony was first held 1961 for 36 couples in SeoulSeoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
by Reverend and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects...
shortly after their own marriage in 1960. All the couples were members of the Unification Church. Rev. Moon matched all of the couples except the 12 who were already married to each other from before joining the church, which was officially founded in 1954.
Later Blessing ceremonies were larger in scale but followed the same pattern with all participants Unification Church members and Rev. Moon matching most of the couples. In 1982 the first large scale Blessing held outside of Korea took place in Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In 1988, Moon matched 2,500 Korean members with Japanese members for a Blessing ceremony held in Korea, partly in order to promote unity between the two nations.
The Blessing ceremonies have attracted a lot of attention in the press and in the public imagination, often being labeled "mass weddings". However, in most cases the Blessing ceremony is not a legal wedding
Wedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
ceremony. Some couples are already married and those that are engaged are later legally married according to the laws of their own countries. The New York Times referred to a 1997 ceremony for 28,000 couples as a "marriage affirmation ceremony," adding: "The real weddings were held later in separate legal ceremonies."
Blessing extended to non-members
The 1990s saw a big change when Rev. Moon allowed the Blessing to be given to other people besides Unification Church members. This liberalization led to a great increase in the number of Blessed couples, with most of them having been already married and not Unification Church members. It is possible for any Blessed couple to give the Blessing to other couples and this is being done in many cases by ministers of other churches who have received the Blessing though their association with the Unification Church. Ministers of other faiths, including JudaismJudaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
have served as "co-officiators" at Blessing ceremonies presided over by Rev. and Mrs. Moon.
In 1997 Rev. and Mrs. Moon presided over a Blessing ceremony in Washington D. C. in which 28,000 of the 30,000 couples taking part were previously married, including controversial Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
minister and civil rights advocate Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton
Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election...
and his wife Katherine. A 2000 ceremony included couples in North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
. In 2001 Roman Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo
Emmanuel Milingo
Emmanuel Milingo is a former Roman Catholic archbishop from Zambia. In 1969, aged 39, Milingo was consecrated by Pope Paul VI as Bishop of the Archdiocese of Lusaka....
married Maria Sung, a Korean acupuncturist, in a Blessing ceremony presided over by Rev. and Mrs. Moon. In the same ceremony George Augustus Stallings
George Augustus Stallings
George Augustus Stallings, Jr. is the founder of the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation, an African-American-led form of Catholicism. He served as a Roman Catholic priest from 1974 to 1989...
, founder of the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation
Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation
The African-American Catholic Congregation and its Imani Temples is an African-centered Catholic expression of the Christian faith. It was founded in 1989 by the Reverend George Augustus Stallings, Jr., a former Catholic priest.-History:...
, married Sayomi Kamimoto, a Japanese Unification Church member. At the same ceremony was Minister Benjamin Muhammad, the national director of the Million Man March
Million Man March
The Million Man March was a gathering of social activists, en masse, held on and around the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on October 16, 1995...
and the Million Family March
Million Family March
The Million Family March was a rally in Washington D.C to celebrate family unity and racial and religious harmony; as well as to address other issues, including abortion, capital punishment, health care, education, welfare and Social Security reform, substance abuse prevention, and overhaul of the...
and a representative of Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. is the leader of the African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam . He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of...
's Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...
. Former Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
n President Godfrey Binaisa
Godfrey Binaisa
Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa QC was a Ugandan lawyer who was Attorney General of Uganda from 1962 to 1968 and later served as President of Uganda from June 1979 to May 1980. At his death he was Uganda's only surviving former president....
married a young Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
woman by the Blessing ceremony in 2004. At that time, Godfrey was 84 years old.
Since 2001 couples Blessed by Moon have been able to arrange marriages for their own children, without his direct guidance. In 2009 the Moons held a Blessing ceremony for 40,000 couples which was expected to be the last personally officiated by them.
Process
The Blessing has five steps:- The Chastening Ceremony. The couple strike each other three times to symbolically make an end to sin and prepare for a new beginning.
- The Holy Wine Ceremony. The couple share a cup of Holy Wine (or grape juice) symbolizing their engrafting into God’s sinless lineage.
- The Holy Blessing Ceremony. The couple exchange vows. A prayer is offered by the officiators. The couple is sprinkled with holy waterHoly waterHoly water is water that, in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and some other churches, has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects; or as a means of repelling evil.The use for baptism and...
. - The Separation Period. The couple refrains from having sexual relations for a period, most often 40 days but in some cases much longer, before consummating, or re-consummating, their marriage.
- The Three Day Ceremony. The couple begins, or re-begins, their married life in a highly symbolic ceremony over three days which is considered to reverse the fall of Adam and EveEve (Bible)Eve was, according to the creation of Abrahamic religions, the first woman created by God...
.
Couples taking part in Blessing ceremonies exchange these four vows:
- To become a true man or woman who practices sexual purity and lives for the sake of others;
- To become a true husband or wife who respects True Parents' example and establishes an eternal family which brings joy to God;
- To become a parent who educates their children to follow the tradition of true love for the sake of the family and world; and
- To create an ideal family which contributes to world peace.
Reaction and criticism
Members of some churches have expressed concerns that people of their churches taking part in Blessing ceremonies might join the Unification Church. In 1998 journalist Peter MaassPeter Maass
Peter Maass is an American journalist and author. He was born in 1960 in Los Angeles, California and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times Magazine. He has mainly covered...
reported that some Unification Church members were dismayed and grumbled when Moon extended the Blessing to non-members because they had not gone through the same course that members had.
The Blessing ceremony figured in the plot of Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
's 1991 novel Mao II
Mao II
Mao II, published in 1991, is Don DeLillo's tenth novel. It was the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1992. The title is derived from a series of Andy Warhol silkscreen prints depicting Mao Zedong. This book was dedicated to DeLillo's editor, Gordon Lish.-Plot summary:A reclusive novelist...
. In 2007 the British television network Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
aired a documentary film, My Big Fat Moonie Wedding, about some of the participants in the 1982 Blessing ceremony of over 2,000 couples which took place in Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
. In in his 2009 autobiography, Tahoe Boy: A Journey Back Home, Pat Hickey
Patrick Hickey (politician)
Patrick Hickey is a politician from Nevada. He is currently a representative in the Nevada State Assembly representing Assembly District 25 in Washoe County. In 2009 his autobiography, Tahoe Boy: A Journey Back Home was published by Seven Locks Press of Cabin John, Maryland.Hickey was born in...
, a state representative in Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
and former Unification Church member who took part in the same ceremony, wrote about his experience of being matched to his future wife by Moon.
External links
- Article on the Blessing from an official church website.
- "Children of Moon church's mass-wedding age face a crossroads", by The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...