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 and the Unification Church Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church is a nonfiction book about the Unification Church and its founder and leader, Sun Myung Moon. It was written by Frederick Sontag, a professor of philosophy at Pomona College and a minister in the United Church of Christ., and published by Abingdon Press in 1977. Sontag spent 10 months visiting church members in North America, Europe, and Asia as well as interviewing Moon at his home in New York State. The book also provides an overview of Unification Church beliefs. In an interview with UPI Sontag