Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church was first held in 1961 for 36 couples in Seoul, South Korea by Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han, shortly after their own marriage in 1960. All the couples were members of the Unification Church. Moon matched all of the couples except the 12 who were already married to each other from before joining the church, which was officially founded in 1954. Later Blessing ceremonies were larger in scale but followed the same pattern with all participants Unification Church members and Moon matching most of the couples. In 1982 the first large scale Blessing held outside of
Unification movement flesh' (Job 10:11), and lives there forever." They also note that family and other human relationships continue after death. The Unification movement does not uphold belief in reincarnation or eternal damnation. Unification theologian Young Oon Kim writes: The seungwha ceremony was introduced by Sun Myung Moon in 1984, at the time of the death of his son Heung Jin Moon. Members who had died prior to this were given traditional Christian funerals. When the new and more distinct format was ordained, the official church newspaper reported: The ceremony itself consists of three parts: The Gwi Hwan Ceremony (or "returning to