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
Sun Myung Moon Sun Myung Moon Sun Myung Moon (Korean 문선명 Mun Seon-myeong; born Mun Yong-myeong; 25 February 1920 – 3 September 2012) was a Korean religious leader, also known for his business ventures and support for political causes. A messiah claimant, he was the founder of the Unification movement (members of which considered him and his wife Hak Ja Han to be their "True Parents"), and of its widely noted "Blessing" or mass wedding ceremony, and the author of its unique theology the "Divine Principle". He was an opponent of communism and an advocate for Korean reunification, for which he was recognized