Unification Church
South Korean new religious movement

The Unification Church (Korean: 통일교; RR: Tongilgyo), officially the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU; 세계평화통일가정연합; Segyepyeonghwatong Ilgajeong Yeonhab), is an Abrahamic monotheistic new religious movement, whose members are called Unificationists or sometimes informally Moonies. The Unification Church was founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon in Seoul, South Korea, as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC; 세계기독교통일신령협회; Segyegidoggyotong Ilsinlyeonghyeobhoe); in 1994, the organization changed its name to the FFWPU. It has a presence in approximately 100 countries. The FFWPU's leader is Hak Ja Han, Moon's wife; Moon had previously co-led it until his death. The couple's followers honor them with the title "True Parents".
The book Divine Principle informs the beliefs of the Unification Church. Moon regarded himself the Second Coming of Christ and taught that he was appointed to complete Jesus Christ's unfinished business, which he claimed was left incomplete due to the crucifixion. This mission included establishing a new ideal family, and a larger human lineage, free from sin. The Unification Church is well known for its mass weddings, known as Blessing ceremonies. Its members have founded, owned and supported related organizations in business, education, politics and more. It has been referred to as South Korean nationalist.
“Unification Church” enters the record as south Korean new religious movement. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Unification, Church and South can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Unification Church” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Unification, Church and South provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q217059. VIAF identifies the subject as 157132622. The Library of Congress control number is n79074365. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1954 and 1994.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Unification Church”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Unification Church primary sources, Unification Church archive and Unification research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Unification Church”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Unification Church” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.