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 former "Times" editors purchased the "Times" from News World. In 1982, Moon sponsored the film "Inchon", an historical drama about the Battle of Inchon during the Korean War. It was not successful critically or financially, and was criticized for its unfair treatment of the North Korean government. In 1989, Moon founded Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma, the most successful soccer club in Korean football, having won a record 7 league titles, 2 FA Cups, 3 League Cups, and 2 AFC Champions League titles. The church is the largest owner of U.S. sushi restaurants and in the Kodiak region of Alaska, is the