2023-05-08 14:03:55
(Central News Agency, Seoul, 8th comprehensive foreign report) The World Peace and Reunification Family Federation (Unification Church) held an international group wedding in Gapyeong, South Korea on the 7th, which was the first in three years. The scene was heavily guarded, and the Japanese journalists who went to the scene to try to interview were severely stopped.
South Korean media Newsis reported that regarding 8,000 couples from 150 countries around the world participated in the group wedding. Some newcomers attended in person, and some participated online.
The couple came from South Korea, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, Brazil, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries. The wedding ceremony was presided over by Han Hezi, the wife of the late founder of Unification Church, Moon Myung-myung and the 80-year-old current president.
In addition to the newcomers, there were also relatives, Unification Church and high-level people in society. A total of regarding 30,000 people attended. This is the first time the Unification Church has held an international group wedding in three years since February 2020. The collective weddings in 2021 and 2022 were canceled due to the epidemic, and the online mode was changed or smaller-scale weddings were held.
Fuji Television News Network (FNN) reported that according to churches, 993 people participated in group weddings in Japan this year, of which 554 attended in person and 439 participated online.
The reporter went to the scene to interview and found that large tour buses were parked around the venue, and since this was the first mass wedding held by the Unification Church following the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year, the scene was heavily guarded.
The mother of Toruya Yamagami, the suspect in the shooting of Shinzo Abe, was a member of the Unification Church. Toru Yamagami also confessed that his mother went bankrupt because of a large amount of donations to the Unification Church, so he hated the Unification Church, so he targeted Abe, who he believed to be related to the church, to commit the murder.
The reporter went to the venue and tried to take pictures, but was yelled at by the guards, “Don’t take pictures indiscriminately, I warn you!”. Some church members also yelled at reporters in Japanese, “What are you doing!”, “Where are you from?”.
The reporter responded, “This is a public road, so there should be no problem that we cannot take pictures,” but the other party still honked their horn and blocked the filming with their hands.
The reporter interviewed the Japanese Catholics who participated in the wedding. The other party said that this year’s wedding has changed slightly compared with the past. “I feel that there are more people in their 20s and 30s, and there are more international newcomers. I didn’t see too many Japanese. Instead, there are more Europeans. It feels like times have changed.”
The Unification Church was founded by Moon Myung-myung in South Korea in 1954, and it became a global craze in the 1970s and 1980s.
After Abe’s assassination, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered the government to launch an investigation. The Unification Church may lose the tax-free treatment enjoyed by registered religious organizations in Japan. (Translator: Dai Yazhen / Verified manuscript: Chen Zhengyi) 1120508
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