Tongil Group Tongil Group Tongil Group is a South Korean business group (chaebol) associated with the Unification Church. (“Tongil” is Korean for “unification,” the name of the Unification Church in Korean is “Tongilgyo.”) It was founded in 1963 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon (following the purchase of a surplus Japanese lathe in 1962) as a nonprofit organization which would provide revenue for the church. Its core focus was manufacturing but in the 1970s and 1980s it expanded by founding or acquiring businesses in pharmaceuticals, tourism, and publishing. In 1998 Tongil Group was about 35th in size among South Korean business
Sun Myung Moon children. Moon's family followed Confucianist beliefs until he was around 10 years old, when they converted to Christianity and joined the Presbyterian Church. In 1941, Moon began studying electrical engineering at Waseda University in Japan. During this time he cooperated with Communist Party members in the Korean independence movement against Imperial Japan. In 1943, he returned to Seoul and married Sun Kil Choi on 28 April 1945. On 2 April 1946 their son, Sung Jin Moon was born. In the 1940s, Moon attended a church in Sangdo dong that was led by the messianic minister Baek Moon Kim, who claimed