Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church President Park Chung-hee. She said: "I join in a trans-religious spirit. I like the Unification Church way of interpreting the Bible, incorporating the Quran and Buddhist scripts". In 2013, four months after the death of Sun Myung Moon, the church held a Blessing ceremony for 3,500 couples in South Korea, while another 24,000 followers took part in other countries via video link. This ceremony was presided over by Hak Ja Han. Moon's practice of matching couples was very unusual in both Christian tradition and in modern Western culture and attracted much attention and controversy. Members of some churches have expressed
Neil Albert Salonen Neil Albert Salonen Neil Albert Salonen (born 1946) is president of the University of Bridgeport, a private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He is a member of the Unification Church and became the president of the Unification Church of the United States in 1972. In 1974 he led the National Prayer and Fast Committee, a group founded by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon to support United States president Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. In 1976 Salonen met with Senator Bob Dole to defend the Unification Church against charges made by its critics, including parents of some members. In that