JUNE

Forty years ago, True Father made an urgent appeal to America to turn back to God. Yankee Stadium was the first of two major rallies held in 1976 as part of the movement’s Bicentennial God Bless America Festival.  The second was held at Washington Monument on September 18. True Father compared himself at Yankee Stadium to a doctor and firefighter who came from the outside to help America meet its third great test as a nation, that of God-denying communism.

A rainstorm with strong winds hit the stadium prior to the start of the rally, blowing away many of the decorations. Unificationists rose in their seats or danced on top of the Yankee Stadium dugouts, singing “You Are My Sunshine” until the storm subsided. Approximately 45,000 people attended.

At the time, True Father’s message was translated as “God’s Hope for America,” but recently the original text of the speech in Korean was located. The title that True Father himself chose was “America Is God’s Hope!” which adds even more meaning to this historic and providential message. A 25-minute video of historical footage at the Yankee Stadium Rally can be viewed here. True Father’s entire message is narrated. He declares his message in his own words in the video at around the 12:00 minute mark. To read the entire speech, click here.
 

On June 3, 1973, U.S. Christian evangelist Billy Graham closed his 5-day crusade for Christ in Seoul, South Korea, in front of a crowd estimated by local officials to exceed 1.1 million in an open space of Yoido Island.

It was the largest audience in the history of Graham’s ministry. The 5-day total exceeded the totals of his historic 16-week, 1957 New York City Crusade. Some 75,000 attendees made a decision for Christ during the crusade, helping to spur an explosive megachurch movement throughout Korea. Following the event, a helicopter rose from behind the platform. Dr. Han, the event chairman, put up his hand for silence. He explained that Billy Graham was leaving Korea that afternoon, and he could not say goodbye personally to everybody, but his helicopter would circle in farewell over the plaza.

A group of Unificationists from the Seoul Western Center attended the rally. Dr. David Carlson wrote, “Our heartfelt prayers go to Dr. Billy Graham, and we hope that someday Unified Family members might speak to crowds such as listened to Dr. Graham, and perhaps even larger.” Dr. Carlson’s wish was fulfilled on June 7, 1975, when True Father spoke before 1.3 million at the same open space on Yoido Island as part of the World Rally for Korean Freedom.

On June 3, 2014, the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP) welcomed Professor Yeon Ah Moon, international vice president of the Family Federation for World Peace (FFWPU), as the new president of WFWP International and WFWP Korea. She became the third president of WFWP, succeeding Dr. Lan Young Moon, who would remain a close advisor to WFWP as president emeritus.

Professor Moon taught Women’s Studies at Sun Moon University and expressed her resolve to lead WFWP in contributing to and supporting Vision 2020. True Parents founded WFWP in 1992. WFWP has members in 143 countries and is a UN NGO, having obtained general consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1997.

True Parents held the second major Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony after the original 36 Couples Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony on June 4, 1962. They blessed in marriage 72 couples. Providentially, these 72 couples are understood to represent Cain and Abel’s restored families in relationship to the 36 couples who represent the original ancestors. They also correspond to Jesus’ 72 disciples.

According to True Father, “Through the unity of the 72 couples representing Cain and Abel with the 36 couples representing Adam and Eve, all providential requirements for the family have been met, and the restoration of the family has been completed.” The way was opened for expansion of the providence beyond the family.

Chairman Seung Ryong Moon, True Father’s second cousin and a continuous companion of True Father’s during his youth, ascended on June 4, 2012. Chairman Moon caught eels with True Father in pools near their hometown and accompanied True Father to school in Jeongju. He later attended high school with True Father in Seoul.

Separated from True Father during the Korean War, Chairman Moon discovered him in Seoul during the mid-1950s and joined the Unification Church. He was blessed as one of the 36 couples and served as factory chief and chairman of Unification industrial enterprises. He was appointed national messiah to Burundi in 1996 and finally settled in the Geomundo Islands off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula, following True Father’s direction. On his ascension, True Father wrote, “Congratulations on your Seonghwa and entry into the heavenly nation, blood brother of heavenly heart Chairman Seung Ryong Moon.”

The Normandy landings (code-named Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, June 6, 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front. The amphibious landings were preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian troops shortly after midnight.

Allied infantry and armored divisions began landing on the coast of France at 6:30 a.m. The men landed under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. However, the operation gained a foothold which the Allies gradually expanded over the coming months. German casualties on D-Day were around 1,000 men. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.

True Father referred to D-Day at several points in his ministry. In his Madison Square Garden speech of September 18, 1974, “The New Future of Christianity,” he said: “God has only been able to engage in ‘guerrilla warfare’ against Satan, not total war. However, God has been preparing for one great day, a heavenly ‘D-Day’ — like the D-Day of the Normandy landing — when God can launch an all-out offensive. That day is the day of the return of Christ.” The Unification movement subsequently referred to Foundation Day 2013 as the day on which the heavenly D-Day was fulfilled.

True Father went to Pyeongyang, North Korea, in obedience to God’s revelation that he “Go across the 38th parallel! Find the people of God who are in the North” (As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, p. 84). True Father, who was then 26, had set out to pick up rice and was concerned for his wife and his first son, who was born only a month earlier, when he received this revelation.

True Father has said, “God’s commands are very serious, and they must be followed without reservation or hesitation.” He took nothing with him except his Bible. Christianity had set down its roots deeply in Pyeongyang, and it was known as “the Jerusalem of the East.” However, it was then under communist occupation and more than a million refugees already had fled to the South. Upon arrival, True Father began his ministry in the North.

The World Rally for Korean Freedom was held on June 7, 1975, at the Seoul Yeouido Square with 1.2 million people. Over 1,000 representatives from 60 countries around the world participated and promised to defend Korea. Through True Father’s speech, ‘Korea Within the World,’ he emphasized that the ‘Rally for Korean Freedom is a global religious celebration which displays the resolution of the world to rise up and defend Korea’s freedom to the whole world.

The Sunhak Peace Prize Committee, headed by Chairman Il-Shik Hong, former secretary general of Korea University, announced the first Sunhak Peace Prize recipients at a press conference for domestic and foreign journalists at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on June 8, 2015. The recipients were Anote Tong and Dr. Modadugu Vijay Gupta.

Anote Tong at the time was the president of the Republic of Kiribati, a small Pacific island nation made up of 33 coral islands, which sustains a population of one hundred thousand people. With a very low average altitude of 2 meters above sea level, its islands gradually are being submerged by the rise in sea levels caused by recent years of global warming, and it faces the tragic fate of having its entire nation submerged by 2050. President Tong has been raising awareness about his homeland’s critical situation, promoting awareness in the global community on the gravity of climate change, and for this he has been highly praised.

Dr. Modadugu Vijay Gupta is known as the “saint for poor people” for helping to quell starvation throughout Southeast Asian nations by developing revolutionary fish farming technology. As a biologist, his methods were responsible for an explosive increase in the number of fish through improving the breeding species of cultivated fish.

The Sunhak Peace Prize, a “peace prize for future generations,” was created by True Mother to commemorate the work of True Father. The prize will be awarded to an individual or organization that has made significant contributions toward the peace and welfare of future generations. Recipients of the award will receive one million U.S. dollars.

The work of building a-frame churches across South Korea started with the first shovel of earth in the city of Shintanjin on June 10, 1974. The 82.6-square-meter A-frame church was designed by Oem Deok Moon, who was True Father’s school friend in Japan. A team was organized for the construction, and 188 churches of this shape were built around the nation. True Father said that a building “should be a beautiful sight,” and at the time it had such an innovative form that it drew the attention of the people. Now, even 40 years later, some of these churches still remain.

True Mother and 1,000 Unificationists attended a joint event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) and the publication of a new edition of the Cheon Seong Gyeong and Pyeong Hwa Gyeong at the Cheongpyeong Training Center in Gapyeong, Korea, on June 10, 2013. As reported by Mr. Seok Byeong Kim, chairman of Seong Hwa Publications, “The existing Cheon Seong Gyeong had some misquoted and duplicated parts, which True Mother was sad to see.” The new edition corrected this and added speeches of True Father and True Mother from the 2000s.

The Publication Committee followed strict guidelines in the publication process, which included planning, research, and selecting speeches, editing, supervision, verification and publication. True Mother described the 60 years of True Father’s work as “precious jewelry.” She reminded all present “to think about the seven billion people and make sure they are reborn as Cheon Il Guk citizens” and to “set today as a day of determination and invest all your energy to saving all of humankind centered on the precious words that God gave us.”

As described by UTS President Tyler Hendricks:

“On the evening of June 11, there was a thunderstorm in the mid-Hudson Valley. A bolt of lightning struck the five-foot-high stone cross that has stood at the top of our seminary for its 70 years of existence. The cross is not grounded, so the energy had no place to go but out horizontally. This snapped the cross at its base, separating it from the building, and blew off both arms. One arm fell with the pillar of the cross backwards onto the roof. The other careened forward, with pieces falling upon building parapets and to the ground as far as 60 feet away. No one was hurt, but one car suffered damage.”

Dr. Hendricks continued:

“As a symbol of Christ’s suffering and salvific love for all humankind, the cross is heroic and magnificent. But as a symbol of humankind’s malice toward God expressed by crucifying His son, the cross induces pain and sorrowful grief to God. While a symbol of God’s victory, it is also a symbol of human sin. In 1974, Father Moon directed that the cross remain atop our seminary. Upon hearing of its demise this June, he said that it is now time for all crosses to come down.”

True Father’s direction became manifest in 2003 when he called upon Christian clergy to take down the cross as a condition for reconciliation among the sons of Abraham. True Father’s call became the foundation for the Middle East Peace Initiative (MEPI) and Peace Pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

The Sun Moon Peace Cup Inaugural Ceremony took place at 3 p.m. on June 12, 2002, at the Little Angels Arts Center in Seoul. More than 500 domestic and foreign attendees showed their interest as True Father spoke on seeking “the path to realize world peace through sports.” He said that the best soccer club teams in the world would participate in the Sun Moon Peace Cup and that it would “become a festival which hopes for all humankind to become one big family.”

True Parents conducted the Marriage Blessing Ceremony in 1998 as the first-stage blessing of 360 million couples worldwide. The main venue was Madison Square Garden in New York City, with satellite feeds to 195 countries. More than 500 buses transported participants, including more than 120 ministers—with 14 buses from Chicago alone. The arena rapidly filled with an estimated 20,000 people. Inside the hall, a 2,000-voice ecumenical choir electrified participants with its performance of “Amazing Grace” and the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

At the main Blessing ceremony, there were 2,824 matched couples, including 65 Unificationist-born couples. Blessing 1998 was distinctive in that it included spirit world blessings. Four Korean women elders were blessed as wives on earth to four major saints of the spirit world. True Parents also extended the “pre-Blessing” to 16 billion spirit world couples. A special group of 34 spirit world couples included some of the greatest saints and worst criminals of history.

True Parents presided over the Opening Ceremony for the Cheon Jeong Gung Museum on Cheonseong Mountain near Cheongpyeong Lake. Approximately 5,000 people participated in the main ceremony, and another 25,000 people watched the event through screens set up in different areas throughout the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center. Prior to the ceremony, thousands of Unificationists from 147 countries participated in week-long festivities from June 6 to 12.

Unificationists throughout the world contributed funds for the Cheon Jeong Gung’s construction. The building itself is a massive structure, its dome some 80 meters high, with 30-ton, 48-meter white granite columns, built into the side of Cheonseong Mountain. Situated midway between Seoul, South Korea, and Pyongyang, North Korea, it was to be the “capitol building” of Cheon Il Guk. True Father delivered a message on the occasion, “Cheon Il Guk Is the Ideal Heavenly Kingdom of Eternal Peace,” in which he outlined the “fundamental duties and mission that every citizen of Cheon Il Guk should understand and live by as they walk the way of Heaven.”

The Cheon Jeong Gung is home to a museum housing artwork and objects that hold historical importance or express Unification Thought and the ideals of peace. It is seen as a holy place, and many have made pilgrimages there because of its spiritual significance.

True Father granted an interview to Newsweek International’sexecutive and general editors. Excerpts from their three-hour conversation were published as part of a cover story on the Unification Church.  

In the interview, True Father explained the origins of the Unification Church and its mission, saying: “My new revelation has made the Will of God crystal clear. And what is that Will? It is to save the world. So the Unification Church is not another denomination—it’s a movement to save the world, and through the teaching of the word of God, each individual in our movement becomes absolutely clear about the concept of the God-centered individual, the God-centered family, the God-centered nation and the God-centered world.”

True Father presented True Mother with a special award following completion of her World Speaking Tour in which she promoted true family values globally in 80 locations, including 24 speeches in the United States. True Mother spoke on “The Path of Life for All Humankind.” The award was also presented on the foundation of True Mother’s absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience in being “victorious over a suffering course of restoration through indemnity known only to Heaven” and for having “fulfilled the mission of a true child in front of Heaven, a true wife in front of her husband, and the mission of a true parent in front of her children.”

Mr. Sang ik (Bong-choon) Choi, known to Japanese members as Mr. Nishikawa, departed Korea to begin the mission to Japan. Because Korea and Japan had not yet established diplomatic relations, he was forced to smuggle into the country as a stowaway aboard a ship. He was arrested but avoided deportation by fasting to induce illness. He escaped after being transferred from prison to a medical clinic and successfully planted the Unification Church in Japan. In 1964, he was again arrested and this time deported. He then began mission work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

After more than 40 years of being an “underground” movement, the Austrian branch of the Unification Church was officially recognized by the Austrian government on June 15, 2015. The federal government’s Office for Religious Affairs officially registered the Austrian Unification Church and recognized it as a “confessional community.” This was a significant step, as it meant the Unification Church had received “state recognition without privileges” from the federal government. The church became the eighth confessional community to be officially registered in Austria.

The Unification Church was first established in Austria in 1965 with the arrival of missionary Paul Werner. However, in 1974 the church’s legal status as a religious association, which had been granted in 1966, was suspended by the Security Agency of Vienna. For decades, Unificationists in Austria fought the stigma placed on them by anti-cult advocates, who branded the association a “threat to public security and order.” The Austrian federal government’s decision rebutted those prejudicial claims, something that Unificationists in other parts of the world are still fighting for.

This recognition came a month after True Mother joined 2,500 Unificationists from all over Europe in Vienna to celebrate 50 years of the Unification movement in Europe.

Construction work to build the Cheongpyeong Training Center in Song-san Hamlet, Seorak Village, Gapyeong County, Gyeonggi Province, began with True Father’s first dig at the riverside using a pickax on June 17, 1971. The 30 or so members who were attending a workshop at Sutaek-ri Training Center in the city of Guri to become pastors were all mobilized to help with the construction work.

Today, forty-five years after it was erected on land that used to be a mulberry field, Cheongpyeong Training Center has become a global holy ground which Unificationists from different nations enjoy visiting. (Materials provided by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) History Compilation Committee)

On June 19, 1984, Rev. Peter Koch passed unexpectedly at the age of 57. He was the leader of the Austrian Unification Church and the first Western missionary to Europe for the Unification Church. In 1969 he was blessed in marriage with Gertrud Güse in the first European Marriage Blessing Ceremony, which was part of the Blessing of 43 International Couples. At the time of his passing Peter Koch left behind his wife, Gertrud, and their children, Goon Amen and Spring Anne. Peter Koch was a moving force behind Mission Butterfly, which sent Unificationists behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s to work as underground missionaries.

On June 19, 2013, Tongil Group staff visited Hope Apparel, a company that helps North Korean escapees adjust to life in the South. Previously Tongil Group employees were donating part of their salaries toward a 2 million won contribution to the company. Hope Apparel, which began in 2009, originally was supported by the Women’s Federation for World Peace, which donated funds for the purchase of sewing machines. Thanks to donations from the Tongil Group employees, the initial costs could be covered for a high-cost commercial sewing machine that works holes into buttons for men’s clothes.

Tongil employees also funded support for the less fortunate. In April 2013, the Cheonghae Multicultural Children’s Soccer Club was invited to watch a Seongnam Ilhwa Soccer Match. Tongil subsequently donated 20 million won to the Multicultural Comprehensive Welfare Center to cover the medical costs of multicultural families.

On June 21, 1977, the Commission on Faith and Order of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. released to the press and other interested persons “A Critique of the Theology of the Unification Church as Set Forth in Divine Principle.” The eleven-page “official study document,” drafted by Sister Agnes Cunningham of Mundelein (Roman Catholic) Seminary, was issued “to clarify the claim to Christian identity made by the Unification Church.”

The Commission acknowledged receiving Unification Church “statements of self-clarification” but disregarded them. It also admitted to “diversity in Christian belief and theology and, thus, internal disagreement.” Nonetheless, the Commission determined that the Unification Church “is not a Christian Church” and that its “claim…to Christian identity cannot be recognized.”

In an important response, published in the Journal of Unification Studies, Dr. Jonathan Wells concluded that “the NCC Critique, though cloaked in theological language,” looked “suspiciously like a witch-hunt.”

Unification Theological Seminary awarded its first honorary doctorates in its history to True Parents who were present for Seminary’s 25th commencement exercises. Their citation read in part, “They have introduced the vision of a world based on true love. They have created a theology of heart that resolves the chaos of theology and philosophy. They are leading humankind centered on the living God and the love of family.” Drs. Lee Kyung-june, President of Sun Moon University and Neil Albert Salonen, President of the University of Bridgeport, placed True Parents doctoral hood upon them, representing the bonds of kinship between the three primary institutions of higher education built by True Parents.

True Father delivered the traditional “Founder’s Address,” speaking for nearly four hours, likely a record for graduation ceremonies anywhere. He issued a call for the Seminary to maintain its founding vision as an interreligious school. He also explained the importance of lineage, challenging the school to provide its students a grasp of the innermost core of God’s heart and truth which culminates in true love and life being incarnated and carried forth.

Ten days prior to the awards ceremony, on June 11, a bolt of lightning destroyed the five-foot cross that had stood on the chapel for 70 years. Upon hearing of its demise, True Father said it is now time for all crosses to be removed.

The God’s Hope for America bus tour began in San Francisco at the Twin Peaks Holy Ground, the first of the 55 Holy Grounds in the United States consecrated by True Father in 1965. The pilgrimage was organized to spark a revival among Unificationists who joined the 43-day tour at various stops across the country. Some 300 Unificationists gathered on Twin Peaks for the send-off. The tour covered 48 states and concluded in Eugene, Oregon, on August 3.

True Father was installed as the chairman of the Korean Root-Finding Association (KRFA), a national organization made up of the leaders of the 275 Korean traditional families, or clans.

Also referred to as the Korean Family-Clan Chairmen’s Association, the KRFA was organized to promote traditional Korean values, culture and the unity of the Korean people. At the installation ceremony True Parents each were presented with an ornate Korean traditional crown.

In his inaugural address True Father acknowledged Korea’s “matchless respect for Heaven, loyalty, filial piety and etiquette,” but stated, “Clan-level root consciousness should be sublimated for a higher root consciousness … of all humanity.” He called upon the association to “extend our love relationships to overcome the conflicts of this age, demolish barriers of age-long disharmony and realize a harmonious world.” He emphasized that “the unification of South and North Korea should be accomplished on the foundation of homogeneity as one people through activating the root-finding movement of true love.”

On June 23, 2000, True Mother was presented with the Grand Prix Peace Prize of UN IAEWP (International Association of Educators for World Peace) at the Folk Museum of Lotte World in Seoul. The Grand Prix Peace Prize is called the Nobel Prize of educational circles and is an award of the highest authority that is presented to those who have contributed to the development of education and human rights. Acknowledged for her contributions to improving the rights of women, True Mother is the first Korean woman to receive this prize. (Materials provided by the FFWPU History Compilation Committee)

The Korean War broke out when the army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The conflict pulled in China and the United States. Eventually, sixteen UN member nations provided troops to the South. The war continued for more than three years until the Korean Armistice Agreement (not treaty) was signed on July 27, 1953. The hostilities resulted in a death toll of over 1.2 million.

True Father was in Heungnam prison camp at the war’s outbreak. Following their landing at Incheon led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, UN and South Korean forces fought their way north, subjected Heungnam prison and factory complex to a massive aerial bombardment and liberated True Father after two years and eight months of confinement. According to Unification teaching, the division of the peninsula and the Korean War were deeply intertwined with providential history and True Father’s mission.

True Father met for 45 minutes with former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower at his Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, office as part of his first world tour.  He was accompanied by Mrs. Won Bok Choi, Col. Bo Hi Pak, Kenji “Daikon” Ohnuki and Gordon Ross. True Father noted that the day marked the 15th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

In their discussion True Father focused attention on three points: the need for a strong anticommunist ideology and movement; the need to bring a halt to moral decay; the need for an active, dynamic religion. President Eisenhower agreed, saying: “Man is a spiritual being. We must bring to bear a greater moral strength based on moral law to stand against the communists. It will take the vigor of youth to do this.” True Father presented the former U.S. president with several gifts, and President Eisenhower wished him the “greatest success.”

More than eleven hundred ministers from a broad range of denominations gathered from around the country in Washington, D.C., to affirm religious freedom and protest the unjust imprisonment of True Father at Danbury Federal Penitentiary. The rally was sponsored by the Coalition for Religious Freedom and the University Alliance for God and Freedom.

Across from the White House, several ministers held handcuffed arms high in the air and a mock jail cell held a gagged woman dressed in white with an inscription that read, “Lady Justice Imprisoned by Blind Government Officials.” This was one of a series of rallies and conferences that led up to True Father’s release on August 20, 1985.

After the Court of Appeals denied True Father’s appeal and upheld his eighteen-month sentence for tax evasion, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution convened a hearing on religious freedom. Chaired by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the hearing looked into whether the verdict in True Father’s case had been a violation of religious freedom. More than three hundred invited persons and observers as well as media crews were present.

In his prepared remarks, True Father stated, “In 1971, God called me to come to America and … for the last 12 years I have given my heart and soul and every drop of sweat and tears for the sake of this nation.” He listed a number of the vast array of projects undertaken by the movement at the cost of “several hundred million dollars,” denied that he had defrauded the U.S. government of a few thousand dollars, and expressed gratitude that God was “using me as an instrument to lead the fight for religious freedom and to ignite the spiritual awakening of America.”

On June 26, 1985, members of the clergy held a religious freedom rally in Washington, D.C., in protest against True Father’s incarceration in Danbury. Participants, who wore a white sash, marched in protest toward the White House, singing the gospel song “We Shall Not Be Moved” at Lafayette Square on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

The clerics raised their handcuffed hands above their heads and prayed for religious freedom. Around 1,000 clerics from different denominations participated in the rally, as did around 2,000 Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) members from fifty universities, including the University of California, Berkeley,  and Harvard University,. (Materials provided by the FFWPU History Compilation Committee)

Dr. Theodore Shimmyo was inaugurated as the second president of the Unification Theological Seminary at the seminary’s 18th commencement exercises. He succeeded the seminary’s first president, Dr. David S.C. Kim, who had served for nineteen years since the seminary’s founding in 1975. Dr. Shimmyo, a graduate of the seminary’s first class, had been a professor of systematic theology and assistant academic dean. In his acceptance speech, “A Place Where Leaders Are Educated,” he pledged to “make sure that this seminary serves the rest of the Unification community, this nation and the world, with a desire to shoulder their burdens.”

On May 18, 1982, a jury for the Southern District of New York returned a guilty verdict against True Father for filing false tax returns from 1973 to 1975. Groups and individuals representing more than 120 million Americans later filed briefs in support of True Father’s appeal. However, the immediate concern was the penalty that the trial judge, Gerard Goettel, would impose.

On June 28, several weeks prior to his decision, True Mother wrote the judge, petitioning him to pray and be guided by God in his deliberations. She wrote: “I believe that I have had the most blessed life of any woman who has ever lived in being married to my husband. He has totally dedicated his life to the service of God and humanity. … From the time I was a young girl, I prayed fervently to live a pious life and to marry a pious man. God listened to every one of my prayers and blessed me more abundantly than I could have ever imagined.” She noted that she had just given birth to their thirteenth child and that the trial proceedings were very difficult, but she “chose to sit by my husband’s side every day.” She emphasized that True Father “continued to inspire us with messages of forgiveness and compassion … [he] would not allow any of us to harbor any hostility towards the government, the prosecutors or any of the witnesses.” She asked the judge to be “compassionate and lenient.”

On July 17, 1982, the court sentenced True Father to 18 months in prison and a $25,000 fine plus costs. The only positive outcome was Judge Goettel’s “binding recommendation” against deportation. The government’s lawyers were eager to deport True Father and pressed Judge Goettel not to issue an opinion on the matter. However, in this instance Judge Goettel did not see things the government’s way. His position was that deportation, in addition to the eighteen-month jail sentence that he himself had imposed, represented “excessive punishment.” The decision, though technically a recommendation, was binding on the Justice Department and could not be appealed.

The Washington Declaration was the second in a series of three declarations, the others being the Jerusalem Declaration (May 18, 2003) and the Seoul Declaration (August 15, 2003), which were offered on the foundation of the First, Second and Third Israels. Each of the declarations focused on interreligious reconciliation and peace. Together they led to True Parents’ “Declaration Ceremony for the Beginning of the Nation of the Fourth Israel” on August 20, 2003.