With Determination and Love

This week in history, August 7-13:

• A dedication ceremony for True Parents’ Archives is held (August 8, 2014)
• Hyo Jin Moon marches to the Berlin Wall (August 8, 1987)
• Violence occurs against church centers in Brazil (August 10, 1981)
• The first national workshop for pastors takes place (August 12, 1971)
• The second anniversary of True Father’s Seonghwa is commemorated (August 12, 2014)
• The Professors World Peace Academy holds a conference on the fall of the Soviet Empire (August 13, 1985)
• True Parents donate 29 ambulances to towns in Brazil (August 13, 1996)
• True Father offers his final prayer (August 13, 2012)

August 8, 2014

Dedication Ceremony for True Parents’ Archives

True Mother dedicated True Parents’ Historical Archives on the morning of the August 8, 2014, at the Family Federation Headquarters in Cheongpa-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul. As one of the events being held in commemoration of the second anniversary of True Father’s Seonghwa, the dedication was attended by some 200 persons, including then World Headquarters Director Sun Jin Moon, then President Kwon Jin Moon, and Cheon Il Guk Holy Scriptures Publishing Committee President Young-Hwi Kim. True Mother performed the unveiling of the signboard and the official ribbon cutting. In her prayer True Mother said, “May this place, a treasure that preserves the historical records of how much True Parents loved humanity and how hard they worked for the completion of the providential history, be well preserved and, together with the erection of the Museum of True Parents’ Lives, express our desire to dedicate something bigger to You for future generations.”

August 8, 1987

Hyo Jin Moon Leads March to the Berlin Wall

Hyo Jin Moon bravely leads 2,000 marchers on their way from the center of West Berlin to the Wall

World CARP held its Fourth World Convention in Berlin, Germany, from August 2 to 8, 1987, during the waning days of the Cold War. Opponents attempted to block the convention by denying CARP hotel and convention space. When those tactics failed, the leftist opposition resorted to heckling and shouting abuse at almost every event, throwing paint and stink bombs, slashing tires of 20 CARP vehicles and setting fire to a CARP bus. Nevertheless the convention was successful, with 3,000 people attending various events. The convention’s high point was on its last day, when 2,000 CARP members and others marched 7 kilometers from the center of Berlin to the Berlin Wall near Checkpoint Charlie. In spite of the hazards, World CARP President Hyo Jin Moon insisted on walking at the front of the march. Members carried flags from their countries of origin, coffins depicting the millions of deaths under communism and placards that read “Die Mauer muss weg!” (“The wall must go!”). Police provided protection, but several hundred counterdemonstrators attempted to disrupt the march by shouting and throwing paint and eggs. At the rally Hyo Jin Moon delivered a passionate address, then rushed through the crowd directly to the Wall, calling on others to join him in prayer. World CARP’s “Jericho March” was an important steppingstone to True Parents’ Moscow Rally in April 1990. In the following days, for the first time since 1961, a demonstration was held in East Berlin to protest the Wall. Young people there also were shouting “Die Mauer muss weg!”

August 10, 1981

Violence against Unification Church Centers in Brazil

1981 is remembered in the Brazilian Church as the year of the “great persecution.” Violence against the church included the stoning or sacking of fourteen centers and burning of six more, five of which were completely destroyed. The riots were triggered by a series of media attacks against the church over four successive Sundays on the Globo Television Network’s “Fantastico,” a show with one of the largest audiences in Brazil. Prior to the outbreak the Brazilian Church had experienced remarkable growth with a network of sixty-four centers throughout the country. During and following the attacks, hundreds of home church families sheltered members and became more committed to the Church. The destruction stimulated the Brazilian Church to later purchase an impressive headquarters church in Sao Paulo from which to coordinate its work.

August 12, 1971

The First National Workshop for Pastors

The first national workshop for pastors was held for eighteen days beginning August 12, 1971, at the Cheongpyeong Training Center. This workshop was held within a month after the completion of the training center, and all participating pastors felt proud that a place of education and training had been created. During the workshop True Father declared his vision that the training center would become the beginning point of missions around the world and that it would become an international holy ground. Today, with Cheon Jeong Gung having been built there, Cheongpyeong has become a hometown of the heart to all members around the world as True Father had said.

August 12, 2014

Second Anniversary of True Father’s Universal Seonghwa

The second anniversary of True Father’s Universal Seonghwa took place on August 12, 2014, at the Cheongshim Peace World Center. The anniversary commemoration culminated a series of major events beginning August 8. These included the dedication of True Parents’ History Archives, World Summit 2014, which welcomed some 300 overseas dignitaries, a Symposium on Peace and Unity of the Korean People, Inauguration of the Sunhak Peace Prize Committee, and a program on “Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Women’s Peace Initiatives in the Americas,” among other events. The Seonghwa commemoration, attended by more than 20,000, focused specifically on True Parents’ “Peace Movement in the Americas.” It included remarks by former U.S. Congressman Dan Burton and a musical covering True Parents’ providential work in the Americas. In her Commemoration Address, True Mother emphasized the theme “Forgive, Love, Unite.” She said: “My husband and I forgave those who were unforgivable, and loved even the enemy that could not be loved. … Even when we faced persecution, we did not harbor any ill-will but rather prayed for those who opposed us. By overcoming such challenges we were given even greater blessings than we could have dreamed of.”

August 13, 1985

PWPA Conference on “The Fall of the Soviet Empire”

The Second International Conference of the Professors World Peace Academy (PWPA), scheduled for August 13 to 17, convened under the title “The Fall of the Soviet Empire.”

Despite its declining, even exhausted economy, in 1985 the Soviet Union still appeared as formidable as ever. At that time, True Father insisted that the Second International Conference of the Professors World Peace Academy (PWPA), scheduled for August 13 to 17, be convened under the title “The Fall of the Soviet Empire.” Several prominent professors struggled with the title, considering it too extreme, but True Father refused to relent. During the conference, over 150 “Sovietology” experts and 100 international scholars presented 80 papers which resulted in four books. In the end, the conference was prophetic. Within a few years the Soviet Union began to crumble. One scholar, writing several years later in The National Interest, reported, “It is hard to believe that … [Reverend Moon] got it right when the CIA, Brookings, RAND, Harvard, Columbia and the rest got it wrong.”

August 13, 1996

True Parents Donate 29 Ambulances to Towns in Brazil

In 1995, True Father undertook an ambitious speaking tour of twenty-three Latin American nations, which included audiences with eight heads of state. In these speeches and meetings, he emphasized the region’s “stunning and abundant potential.” That same year he began investing in properties, centering on Jardim, a town in the Brazilian outback state of Mato Grosso do Sol, a land of “two million people and twenty million cows.” There True Father established New Hope Farm and made it a focus of the movement’s activity in the late 1990s. True Parents assigned UTS graduates from the Class of 1996 to 33 towns surrounding Jardim. When True Parents learned there were no hospitals in many of them, they donated 29 new ambulances to towns within a 200-kilometer radius of New Hope Farm and sent a medical team to each of them.

August 13, 2012

True Father’s Final Prayer

Though he is very ill, True Father takes time to visit the Cheongshim Middle and High School, Cheongpyeong World Peace Center and the Cheongpyeong Training Center.

True Father takes time to visit the Cheongshim Middle and High School, Cheongpyeong World Peace Center and the Cheongpyeong Training Center.

True Father was admitted to St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul on August 3, 2012, due to cold symptoms that worsened into pneumonia. On August 12, after 10 days of tests and treatment, he insisted on returning to the Cheon Jeong Gung Peace Palace. After arriving, True Father went from room to room in a wheelchair, visiting the East, West, North and South of the facility. He touched the table at which he and True Mother sat during Hoon Dok Hwe and many other items, now and then saying, “Please be well.” Those things he could not touch with his hands he observed with his eyes, holding True Mother’s hand tightly and repeating now and then, “Mother, thank you.” The following day, True Father’s condition continued to worsen. Nevertheless, he insisted on visiting Cheongshim Middle and High School, Cheongpyeong World Peace Center and the Cheongpyeong Training Center.

He then came to the sitting room in the Cheon Jeong Gung and asked for a digital recorder. He thought deeply for about ten minutes and then offered his final prayer:

Today, as I have returned the completion of the final perfection of the Father, I am aware that I have offered my whole life up to this moment to the Father. According to His Will, I am spending this time to bring my life to a conclusion, using this time to bring it to a close with Jeong Seong. …Tribal messiahs have established a name that can represent the nation. I have accomplished all these tasks. I have accomplished everything.

Afterward True Mother took True Father to Cheongshim Medical Center, where his strength appeared to fail, and he was rushed back to St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul. He remained in the Intensive Care Unit there until August 31, when True Mother directed that he be returned to Cheongshim Medical Center. True Father ascended on September 3 (H.C. 7.17).

This Week in History briefly lists significant events in the history of the Unification Church, the lives of the Founders, and world events that are momentous to Unificationists. Most items are marked according to the solar calendar. Items marked “H.C.” correspond to the Cheon-gi or Heavenly Calendar, which is based on the lunar calendar. This installment covers the week of August 7 to 13.