Global media coverage about messiah

In pictures: Thousands mourn 'Moonies' church founder BBC News - ‎1 hour ago‎ More galleries. Day in pictures People run for cover as smoke rises from the site of a fire at a fireworks. 24 hours of news photos: 6 September 2012. Your pictures A record turntable. Readers' pictures on the theme of music. Cecil Beaton's war Men of the Long ... Sun Myung Moon The Economist - ‎2 hours ago‎ THRUSTING his small strong arm into the firewood piles where they nested, Sun Myung Moon as a boy would flush out sparrows into a net. Usually they were cooked for his siblings; peasant families in North Pyongan province ate what they could get. But he ... Thousands in S.Korea mourn Moon Global Times - ‎2 hours ago‎ Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the ... "Moonie" church mourns leader Yahoo! News UK - ‎8 hours ago‎ 7 hours ago, Reuters Videos. Mourners gather in South Korea, saying goodbye to a controversial church leader. Sun Myung Moon, who founded the Unification Church, died on Monday (September 3) at the age of 92. The self-declared messiah left behind a ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon AsiaOne - ‎8 hours ago‎ This handout photo taken and received on September 6, 2012 from the Unification Church in South Korea shows the body of the church's late founder, Sun Myung Moon, at the church's complex in Gapyeong, 60 kilometres (35 miles) east of Seoul. AFP ... Posted by Muhammad Iqbal Business Recorder (blog) - ‎9 hours ago‎ GAPYEONG: Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended on Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon Capital FM Kenya - ‎10 hours ago‎ South Korea, Sept 6 – Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late “messiah” Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white ... Moon Sun-myung's legacy Korea Times - ‎11 hours ago‎ By Donald Kirk Probably no Korean has inspired more controversy for so many very different reasons than did the Rev. Moon Sun-myung. As a religious figure and a tycoon, he moved from cult to commerce as if they were interrelated, all in accordance with ... Thousands of mourners descend on Unification Church headquarters Telegraph.co.uk - ‎11 hours ago‎ Thousands of mourners descend on Unification Church headquarters. Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended on Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung ... N.Korea absent at Moon funeral: Church official The Sunday Times Sri Lanka - ‎12 hours ago‎ GAPYEONG, South Korea, Sept 6, 2012 (AFP) - North Korea has decided not to send a delegation to South Korea to attend the funeral of Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, a senior church official said Thursday. “When I was in the North, I was told ... Reverend gave new meaning to wedding mass Brisbane Times - ‎12 hours ago‎ During the 1970s and early '80s, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, popularly known as ''the Moonies'', claimed more than 4 million members in 120 countries. Moon, a South Korean multimillionaire businessman, had discovered his vocation as the ... Reverend gave new meaning to wedding mass Sydney Morning Herald - ‎12 hours ago‎ During the 1970s and early '80s, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, popularly known as ''the Moonies'', claimed more than 4 million members in 120 countries. Moon, a South Korean multimillionaire businessman, had discovered his vocation as the ... Thousands mourn Moon's death Korea Times - ‎13 hours ago‎ Thousands of tearful mourners flocked to the Unification Church's main compound east of Seoul Thursday to pay their respects to the church's late founder and leader Rev. Moon Sun-myung. Men clad in black suits with white ties and women in white dresses ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon Yahoo!7 News - ‎13 hours ago‎ GAPYEONG, South Korea (AFP) - Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women ... Thousands gather at wake for 'Moonies' founder Sun Myung Moon BBC News - ‎13 hours ago‎ Thousands of mourners gathered at the headquarters of the Unification Church in South Korea as the 10-day wake for leader Sun Myung Moon began. Buses ferrying men and women in black and white began arriving at the Church's compound in Gapyeong, ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon The Sun Daily - ‎13 hours ago‎ GAPYEONG, South Korea (Sept 6, 2012): Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon Straits Times - ‎14 hours ago‎ Hyung Jin Moon, International President of the Unification Church and the youngest son of Evangelist Reverend Sun Myung Moon (Left), and his wife Lee Yeon-ah make a deep bow during memorial services for Sun at the CheongShim Peace World Center in ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon at start of 10-day wake Straits Times - ‎14 hours ago‎ Hyung Jin Moon, International President of the Unification Church and the youngest son of Evangelist Reverend Sun Myung Moon (Left), and his wife Lee Yeon-ah make a deep bow during memorial services for Sun at the CheongShim Peace World Center in ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon BigPond News - ‎14 hours ago‎ Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late 'messiah' Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the ... Thousands mourn Moon in South Korea BigPond News - ‎14 hours ago‎ Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late 'messiah' Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon The Australian - ‎14 hours ago‎ Unification Church devotees wait in line to mourn the death of their leader and Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon at the Cheongshim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, South Korea. Picture: AFP Source: AFP. Unification Church devotees stand in ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon Channel News Asia - ‎14 hours ago‎ GAPYEONG, South Korea: Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon AsiaOne - ‎14 hours ago‎ GAPYEONG, South Korea - Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon StarAfrica.com - ‎15 hours ago‎ Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon. Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters... Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon Bangkok Post - ‎15 hours ago‎ Buddhist monks and Unification Church devotees walk past a portrait of the late Sun Myung Moon at his wake in Gapyeong on September 6. Thousands of tearful mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the church to offer prayers ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon MSN Malaysia News - ‎15 hours ago‎ Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the church's main compound in Gapyeong, 60 kilometres (35 miles) east of Seoul, at the start of a 10-day wake ahead of Moon's funeral on September 15. Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon MSN Philippines News - ‎15 hours ago‎ Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the church's main compound in Gapyeong, 60 kilometres (35 miles) east of Seoul, at the start of a 10-day wake ahead of Moon's funeral on September 15. Thousands mourn Moon in South Korea Sky News Australia - ‎15 hours ago‎ Thousands mourn Moon in South Korea. Updated: 13:35, Thursday September 6, 2012. Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late 'messiah' ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon Sky News Australia - ‎15 hours ago‎ Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon. Updated: 13:34, Thursday September 6, 2012. Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late 'messiah' ... Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon Radio Netherlands - ‎15 hours ago‎ Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the ...

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Globaltimes.cn about messiah Thousands in S.Korea mourn Moon -

Thousands in S.Korea mourn Moon

Agencies | 2012-9-7 0:15:04 By Agencies

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Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon.

Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the church's main compound in Gapyeong, 60 kilometers east of Seoul, at the start of a 10-day wake ahead of Moon's funeral on September 15.

Moon, the self-styled messiah who founded the church famed for its mass weddings and business empire spanning cars to sushi, died Monday at the age of 92 due to complications from pneumonia.

From early morning, buses ferried mourners - including a large number of Japanese - into the sprawling, mountain-ringed Gapyeong complex, where a special altar bearing a giant portrait of a youthful-looking Moon had been erected inside a cavernous, covered stadium.

They offered roses and lilies - Moon's favorite flowers - and bowed before the portrait ringed with roses.

The altar was flanked by the flags of South Korea, Japan, the US and other countries, as well as floral tributes from prominent figures including South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

The atmosphere was somber but calm, as Moon Hyung-jin, Moon's youngest son and successor as church leader, received the mourners, who included women with infants in strollers.

Many wept quietly as solemn music played in the background.

Bo Hi-pak, Moon's close aide, urged church members to rally behind Moon's two sons and his wife to continue their founder's legacy.

"The father told us not to cry and not to show sorrow when he's gone, so everyone's trying hard to follow his words," he told AFP before bursting into tears. "But we're too devastated."

Hundreds of students from church-owned schools and dancers from a church-run ballet troupe were among those who paid tribute at the altar, under a giant banner reading "Sun Myung Moon: The true parent of heaven, earth and humankind."

Selected senior church members and VIP mourners were allowed to view Moon's body, which had been laid out in a glass-topped coffin in one room of a vast White House-modeled hillside mansion.

Moon's reclining body was clothed in a heavily brocaded red and gold robe and a silver crown placed on his head.

Following a personal condolence message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, there had been speculation that Pyongyang might send a rare delegation to the South to attend the September 15 funeral. But a senior church official said Thursday that Pyongyang had decided to stay away, amid lingering resentment over a recent South Korean-US military drill.

Thousands in S.Korea mourn Moon - Globaltimes.cn:

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The Economist about messiah: Sun Myung Moon |

Sun Myung Moon

The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification church, died on September 3rd, aged 92

Sep 8th 2012 | from the print edition

THRUSTING his small strong arm into the firewood piles where they nested, Sun Myung Moon as a boy would flush out sparrows into a net. Usually they were cooked for his siblings; peasant families in North Pyongan province ate what they could get. But he once put two birds in a cage to hear them sing and to watch them mate. It pleased him, he said, to see them express their love for each other.

Critics suspected he got much the same pleasure, many years later, when he presided over the famous mass weddings of his Unification church. Dozens, even hundreds, of couples, in off-the-peg white dresses and dark suits, would parade before him, across lurid carpets and through banks of gladioli, to be soberly scattered with confetti by their high-crowned True Father and their equally unsmiling True Mother, Hak Ja Han. Mr Moon arranged these marriages himself, by pairing photographs. Like the sparrows, many of the candidates had never met before.

Yet this was no whim, he said. It was the most important work that could possibly be imagined. As he wrote in his book, “Explanation of the Divine Principle”, soon after he had founded his church in 1954, he was engaged on restoring mankind to the purity God had intended before Adam fell. When the first parents had sex illicitly, after eating the fruit in Eden, they broke God’s heart. Jesus, when he came, was meant to marry and restore a perfect, united humanity through his children, but he was killed first. Both Jesus and God had appealed to Mr Moon personally (Jesus on a hillside near his village, God in a suffering roar of waves and mountains) to finish the work that had been left undone. An ever-increasing series of pure marriages across races and cultures would remake the relationship between man and God, for whom Mr Moon was now spokesman.

He therefore wasn’t just going his own way, he said, when he built up his church from a cardboard shack in a South Korean refugee camp to a billion-dollar worldwide enterprise encompassing luxury hotels, fishing fleets, ski resorts, gun-manufacturing, theWashington Times, vast estates in Uruguay and the only car-making factory in North Korea. He needed to remake the world for purified humanity: his own many children and grandchildren, the children of the couples he had married, and the church members whose True Parent he had now become. Hence the blessing of “holy ground” all over the world, including a patch on Capitol Hill; the floating of vaporous giant projects, such as an International Peace Highway from Tokyo to London; and his pushing of acolytes to keep raising money, so that ever more property could be added to the sacred pile.

Mr Moon knew he was mocked, but smiled blandly through it; it was the fate of every new religion to be attacked, and his was more revolutionary than most. He was accused of brainwashing church members and breaking up families, but beat off most such charges except the Daily Mail’s. In America, to which he moved in 1971, he was wounded like Jesus—though, unlike Jesus, he eventually had the IRS on his tail for unpaid taxes on a Chase Manhattan account known as “Father’s money”, from which he paid school fees and bought gold watches. Officials of his large church branch in Japan, too, would bring into America bags of cash from the sale of holy trinkets to prop up his American enterprises. It could all be explained away as God’s business, though for 13 months in 1982-83 he ran his church from a federal prison in Connecticut.

Tea in Pyongyang

He had picked America in order to fight communism, an enemy from long before. As a Presbyterian preacher in North Korea in the late 1940s he had twice been jailed by the new red regime, once for “disturbing society”. He had staggered to the South on an ice floe across the Imjin river in 1950, stripped of all except the clothes he stood in. Later he fought communism with the ironclad conservatism of the Washington Times, the daily reading of Ronald Reagan’s White House, and with “God Bless America” rallies in Washington and at Yankee Stadium, mirroring his huge anti-communist rallies in South Korea.

Despite 30 years in America, however, he never spoke English. Korean was God’s language. Some thought he was an agent of South Korea, or perhaps the Korean CIA. He laughed that off, and put out mediating feelers to the North as well. Kim Il Sung, the founder, treated him as an old friend. Kim Jong Il, the strange son, sent him presents of roses and wild ginseng root, to make the honeyed tea that kept him going through a day of sermons after two hours’ sleep.

He discussed reunification with both of them. The reason he desired it, though, was that Korea was God’s chosen nation, the new Israel, the suffering land where heaven’s work would be accomplished. Mr Moon once proposed himself as supreme chairman of the reunited country, with a central ideology of “Godism”.

Even among Koreans, though, his name faded. The “dangerous cult” no longer bothered anyone. His church, for which he claimed 3m members, probably had far fewer. In 2009 another mass wedding, in Seoul and simultaneously worldwide, was said to have involved 40,000 of them. Their True Father presided, but this time nobody much was watching.Sun Myung Moon | The Economist:

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Google about messiah: AFP: Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon

Thousands in South Korea mourn Moon

By Jung Ha-Won (AFP) – 16 hours ago  

GAPYEONG, South Korea — Thousands of tearful, flower-carrying mourners descended Thursday on the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church to offer prayers to their late "messiah" Sun Myung Moon.

Men clad in black suits and women in white dresses flooded the church's main compound in Gapyeong, 60 kilometres (35 miles) east of Seoul, at the start of a 10-day wake ahead of Moon's funeral on September 15.

Moon, the self-styled messiah who founded the church famed for its mass weddings and business empire spanning cars to sushi, died Monday at the age of 92 due to complications from pneumonia.

From early morning, buses ferried mourners -- including a large number of Japanese -- into the sprawling, mountain-ringed Gapyeong complex where a special altar bearing a giant portrait of a youthful-looking Moon had been erected inside a cavernous, covered stadium.

They offered roses and lilies -- Moon's favourite flowers -- and bowed before the portrait ringed with roses.

The altar was flanked by the flags of South Korea, Japan, the United States and other countries, as well as floral tributes from prominent figures including South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak.

The atmosphere was sombre but calm, as Hyung-Jin Moon, Moon's youngest son and successor as church leader, received the mourners, who included women with infants in strollers.

Many wept quietly as solemn music played in the background.

"I feel even sadder than when my own parents died... I'd never thought the true father would leave us so soon," Park Mal-Rye told AFP, wiping tears from her face.

"Our church has always been vilified and cornered by Christians. But now the father's death will shed more light on his accomplishments and help our church grow further," said Park, a follower for the past 20 years.

Bo Hi Pak, Moon's close aide, urged church members to rally behind Moon's two sons and his wife to continue their founder's legacy.

"The father told us not to cry and not to show sorrow when he's gone, so everyone's trying hard to follow his words," he told AFP before bursting into tears. "But we're too devastated."

Hundreds of students from church-owned schools and dancers from a church-run ballet troupe were among those who paid tribute at the altar, under a giant banner reading: "Sun Myung Moon: The true parent of heaven, earth and humankind."

Selected senior church members and VIP mourners were allowed to view Moon's body which had been laid out in a glass-topped coffin in one room of a vast White House-modelled hillside mansion.

Handout video footage showed mourners on their hands and knees touching their heads to the floor in front of the coffin.

Moon's reclining body was clothed in a heavily brocaded red and gold robe and a silver crown placed on his head.

The scenic estate, which overlooks a large lake, houses a host of modern facilities, including schools, training centres and a hospital where Moon was treated in the last days of his life.

More than 150,000 mourners from South Korea and abroad, including 32,000 from Japan, are expected to pay their respects over the next 10 days, church officials said.

Following a personal condolence message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, there had been speculation that Pyongyang might send a rare delegation to the South to attend the September 15 funeral.

But a senior church official said Thursday that Pyongyang had decided to stay away, amid lingering resentment over a recent South Korean-US military drill.

"When I was in the North, I was told by the officials there that there would be no funeral delegation to visit the South," said Park Sang-Kwon, president of an automaking joint venture the church established in North Korea in 1999.

"They said the North still had hard feelings... and it may be inappropriate for them to send the delegation after criticising the South so much in recent weeks."

Pyongyang had denounced the August 20-31 computer-assisted simulation exercise, named Ulchi Freedom Guardian, as a provocative rehearsal for war.

Although a staunch anti-communist, Moon began building a relationship with North Korea in the 1990s. In 1991 he visited Pyongyang and met with then leader Kim Il-Sung for talks that touched on reunification of the divided peninsula.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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Buddhist monks and Unification Church devotees walk past a portrait of the late Sun Myung Moon (AFP, Kim Jae-Hwan)

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