Working Through the Word
This week in history, March 1-7:
- The March 1st Korean Independence Movement came about (March 1, 1919)
- The first 100-day training at Belvedere was held (March 1, 1973)
- The first edition of the Washington Times was published (March 1, 1982)
- The Universal Peace Academy opens (March 4, 2013)
- The Middle East Times begins publication (March 7, 1983)
March 1, 1919
The March 1st Korean Independence Movement
The March 1st (Samil) Movement came about as a result of Japan’s repressive colonial occupation of Korea starting in 1905. On March 1, 1919, thirty-three activists who formed the core of the movement read the Korean Declaration of Independence which they had signed. This sparked nationwide demonstrations which were viciously put down by Japanese police. The March 1st Movement had a profound impact on True Father. In his autobiography, he stated that his great-uncle, Yoon Guk Moon, a graduate of Pyongyang Theological Seminary and a minister, “participated in the drafting of the 1919 Declaration of Independence.” He also “printed thousands of Korean flags and handed them out to the people who poured into the streets.” Yoon Guk Moon later was arrested and put under constant surveillance. True Father wrote that his great-uncle’s “steadfast love for his country, even in the face of extreme adversity,” provided him with a “definite compass” for his life. True Father was born 10 months after the March 1, 1919 demonstrations.
March 1, 1973
First 100-Day Training at Belvedere Estate
On March 1, 1973, the first International Training Session began at Belvedere in Tarrytown, New York. Initiated as a 100-day program for future church leaders, the schedule included forty days of intense Divine Principle study, thirty days of the Victory over Communism (VOC) ideology and thirty days of Unification Thought, a recently published application of the Principle to philosophy. The six hours of daily lectures were interspersed with talks from True Father, fellowship, discussion, examinations, lecture practice, and participation in the ongoing New York City outreach campaign. In addition to solidifying the U.S. Unification Church, Belvedere Training was the first international training program as it included recently arrived “New Pilgrims” from Europe. One U.S. participant wrote: “Europeans were not the only ones wearing smiles of eagerness and anticipation. Some American brothers were intoxicated in those early days, because we were so many fine people together and Belvedere is the most holy place in America.”
Belvedere Training also afforded intimate access to True Parents who spent much time there. Joseph Kinney wrote, “People who needed internal guidance, or who had spiritual problems, went directly to Father Moon. There was no security on the property; True Parents would just walk around the grounds and the garden, and members could just walk up to them. … The chain of commanders and links between Father Moon and us was extremely short. He spoke to us throughout the day, and he had personal give and take with everybody in the Training Center, even if it was just one or two sentences. If you were lucky, you’d give a testimony in front of him, or he’d bonk you gently on the head or ask you what country you were from. Even if he saw you in a crowd, there’d be some acknowledgment.”
March 1, 1982
First Edition of The Washington Times
On January 1, 1982, True Father announced his intention of starting a new daily newspaper in Washington, D.C. Specifically, according to the testimony of Dr. Bo Hi Pak, one of the first missionaries to the United States, True Father stated his intention of founding a conservative daily newspaper in the nation’s capital. The Washington Star, the capital’s only major competitor of the powerful but liberal-leaning The Washington Post, had folded the previous year, and many lamented the prospect of Washington, D.C., becoming a “one-newspaper town.” On January 1, True Father selected 200 newspaper trainees from among a full ballroom of Unificationist volunteers and directed that The Washington Times be published within three months, on March 1, to correspond with the anniversary of Korea’s Samil Independence Movement. True Father appointed Dr. Pak as president. In the 58 days from January 1 to March 1, Dr. Pak recruited an experienced editor and publisher as well as a first-rate staff, including a number of well-known journalists. He also found and obtained True Father’s approval to purchase a former paper factory located on New York Avenue NE, just a short distance from downtown Washington, as The Times’ headquarters. Still, articles for the first edition had to be transmitted to New York, where they were typeset in the offices of The News World. Dr. Pak himself went to New York and brought the newspaper negatives back to Washington overnight on a chartered light aircraft.
March 4, 2013
Universal Peace Academy Opens
On March 4, 2013, the first Entrance Ceremony for the Universal Peace Academy (UPA) was held in the Main Chapel of Cheongshim Graduate School of Theology at Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center in Korea. Forty-three students, mainly from Korea and Japan but also from eight additional nations, participated. They were chosen as entering “cadets” through a strict selection process for the master’s level course which includes the graduate school and a one-year pre-graduate language school for those needing to raise their competence in Korean. After the Wonmo Peace Foundation was established according to True Father’s direction, UPA was the first project set up for the education of Unificationist-born future leaders. True Mother founded and named the academy. At the Entrance Ceremony she said that under the motto of “Loving Heaven, Loving Nation and Loving People,” UPA “is a school to create leaders who will build a world with freedom, peace, unification and happiness in heaven and on this earth.” She called on the cadets to regard their educational experience “not only as the light of your life but the light for the seven billion people of the earth.”
March 7, 1983
Middle East Times Begins Publication
True Father first shared his vision of the importance of creating a newspaper for the Middle East at an international leaders’ conference at his sixtieth birthday observance in 1980. He did so for two major reasons. First, Unificationist missionaries were specifically forbidden from pursuing traditional missionary activities in predominantly Islamic nations. Second, local publications were of generally poor quality both in production standards and, more importantly, editorial standards. In fact, Middle East media contributed to divisions within the region by being highly partisan, controlled either directly or indirectly by government or religious interests. The Middle East Times, founded at the end of 1982, published its first edition on March 7, 1983. Its vision was to promote a regional view of the Middle East, taking a position of reconciliation between different sides. Published out of Cyprus, the weekly paper utilized the talents and experience of Unificationist missionaries in the region. By 1985, it circulated in 12 countries. By 1991, it circulated in 18 countries with a readership of 50,000 every week. It also played a significant providential role in connecting the Grand Muftis of Syria and Yemen as well as other Middle East leaders to True Parents.
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 March 1–7.