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
Unification Church of the United States the government and the public.(see also: United States vs. Sun Myung Moon) In the 1970s the American news media began using the word "Moonie" to refer to Unification Church members. This was widely considered to be derogatory. In the 1980s and 1990s the church undertook an extensive public relations campaign against the use of the word by the news media. In 1989 the "Chicago Tribune" was picketed after referring to members as "Moonies". Minister and civil rights leader James Bevel handed out fliers at the protest which said: "Are the Moonies our new niggers?" On an October 6, 1994 broadcast