The following is an English translation of the speech delivered by Pak Chung Hwa, author of "Tragedy of the Six Marys" and "I Am an Apostate," at the Headquarters Church of the Unification Church of Japan on November 18, 1995. Mr. Pak spoke in Korean and his words were translated into Japanese for those present. This is a translation of the written Korean text of his remarks.

Fundamentally, I am not in a position to be able to appear before you, and I am sincerely grateful that you have received me with your warm and generous love.

In 1993, I published "Roku Maria no Higeki (Tragedy of the Six Marys)" through the Koyu Publishing Co. of Japan. In this book I denounced Rev. Sun Myung Moon as Satan and wrote that he had many problems involving women, even though in fact there had been none. In so doing I did: First, defame the honor of Rev. Moon; Second, caused unspeakable pain to you members of the Unification Church of Japan. I have heard that even now those opposed to the church are using my book in order to force members whom they have kidnapped to give up their faith. In addition, as a result of my book, the Unification Church has been falsely accused of being a sexual cult, placing tremendous obstacles in the way of your witnessing activities. Third, I have obstructed the worldwide salvation providence that God is carrying out through the Unification Church. I sincerely apologize for all of these.

Now, I have published "I Am an Apostate" as a complete revision of "Tragedy of the Six Marys" for no other reason than that I wanted to tell you the truth and I wanted to apologize for having defamed your and Rev. Moon's honor. Also, even now I have not forgotten the eternal pledge that I made with Rev. Moon, and I published this book in order to sincerely repent for having broken my pledge.

As you know, I met Rev. Moon around February 1949 at North Korea's Hungnam Camp for Special Laborers. The workload was extremely harsh, and I was not accustomed to putting fertilizer into straw bags and then tying the bags closed. I was having difficulty, and Rev. Moon came over and personally showed me how and guided me. From then, I received much guidance from him, and soon it became my sole source of happiness in the prison to meet him each morning and work together with him.

Then one night, a white-haired old man appeared to me in a dream and told me that Rev. Moon was the Lord of the Second Advent. The next morning when I saw Rev. Moon, I found that he was aware of what I had dreamed the night before. So, from that time, I came to believe that Rev. Moon was the Messiah and I began to attend him as so.

In the Hungnam Camp for Special Laborers, I was in a different cell from Rev. Moon. One day, monitor Kim Nam-sung who was in the same cell as Rev. Moon said to me: "Number 596 is very strange. He takes half of his ball of rice and gives it to others." It was impossible to even imagine such a thing. Rice was very precious to us. We were so hungry that if someone were to drop even a grain of rice, everyone would fight to pick it up and eat it. So, when I heard what Rev. Moon was doing, I thought to myself that he really is the Messiah. Also, there was the time when I gave Rev. Moon some glutinous rice ground into powder. My intention was that he should give this to one of our superiors so that they would assign him to an easier task. But later he told me that a person right next to him was about to die and so he gave the rice powder to that person. I exclaimed: "You gave it to a dying man?" and became angry. But he told me: "You shouldn't think only of your physical body. If you talk that way, you'll just receive a scolding from the old man in your dreams."

These are examples of the way Rev. Moon consistently demonstrated the spirit of "living for God's will." I was released from the Hungnam camp before Rev. Moon. After my release, I got into some trouble with some hoodlums, and they broke my leg so that I couldn't walk. After Rev. Moon was released, he sent Mr. Kim Won Pil to see me and I met Mr. Kim in Pyongyang. I was at my older sister's home in Pyongyang, recuperating from my broken leg, however, and so I wasn't able to be of any help to Rev. Moon. Soon, the Chinese and North Korean armies began pressing south, and it became necessary to escape from Pyongyang.

Because I couldn't walk, Rev. Moon and Mr. Kim Won Pil put me on a bicycle, and sometimes Rev. Moon carried me on his back, as we escaped from Pyongyang at the risk of our lives. We kept going south, until we came to about a 30 degree uphill on a mountain pass between Heuk-kyo and Hwang-ju. It was impossible to push the bicycle up the hill, so I pleaded with Rev. Moon to leave me and go on without me. But Rev. Moon said: "If we die, we die together; and if we survive, we survive together." And he put me on his back and carried me over the pass.

We got as far as Jangdan, near the Imjin River. We were spending the night before making out crossing the next morning. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, Rev. Moon woke me up and said: "Chung-hwa, get up. Quick. Wake up Won Pil. If we don't cross the river right now, we won't be able to cross at all." So, we set out at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. It was dark, and there were ice packs floating on the river. We made our way across by jumping from ice pack to ice pack. Even today, I don't know how the three of us, with me on the bicycle, could have made it across. As soon as we got across, the American MPs took Rev. Moon and Won Pil and conscripted them to help put up a barbed wire fence along the southern bank of the Imjin. They came back after about an hour. All the people who were behind us were not allowed to cross the river.

Rev. Moon said that as long as the three of us stayed together as a trinity, God would protect us. In fact, there were three times when we encountered random machine gun fire, but we miraculously survived. We faced death again and again on our way south.

I first began to go on the wrong path when I decided to stay in Kyungju and separated from Rev. Moon. Later, in May 1953, I made my second start on the way of God's will with Rev. Moon at the Jungdong Church in Pusan. When I did so, I left behind in Kyungju a wife and a daughter. This was similar to the way I had left my wife and children in Pyongyang when I began the trip south with Rev. Moon.

It was the case in Pusan, as it had been earlier in Pyongyang, that people who heard God's word through Rev. Moon wanted desperately to experience God's will so much that they thought only of a pure and innocent love. They refrained from any sexual relations with their spouses in an effort to purify themselves.

Not long ago, I shared a taxi with Mr. Ahn Byung-il and Mr. Eu Hyo-min (This person is a member of the 36 couples who is now among the opposition.) We were going from the Walker Hill Hotel toward the center of Seoul, and Mr. Eu remarked on how he had joined the Unification Church in early 1954 and refrained from sexual intercourse for more than seven years. He said that by the time he finally received the Blessing in 1961 and was able to begin his family life, his masculine sexual functions had greatly atrophied and he had a hard time recovering. That's how much the members who heard God's word in those days all led lives of purification. So, this led to suspicion among people whose husbands and wives were in the church. In particular, husbands whose wives were in the church suspected that something immoral must be going on between their wives and Rev. Moon and vigorously opposed the church. But it would have been impossible in that situation, where everyone was refraining from sexual relations, for Rev. Moon alone to have had relations with many women.

Despite this, I wrote in "Tragedy of the Six Marys" that Rev. Moon committed adultery.

Near the end of 1953, many good people entered the Unification Church, including former president Eu Hyo Won. This brought to and end a wonderful period in my life when I was in the position of Rev. Moon's chief aide. I was replaced by Mr. Eu Hyo Won and then Mr. Song Do Uk.

In July 1955 the Ehwa University incident broke, and the authorities arrested Rev. Moon. After three months he was found to be innocent and released. When I saw him at the time of his release, he said to me: "You worked very hard. Now you should rest." Eventually, I went to work in the Seojin coal mine. This coal mine was located deep in the mountains far away from Seoul, and after four or five years there I couldn't help but feel sad and lonely. It wasn't so bad as long as received funds for operating the mine, but when the money stopped there was no way that I could soothe my feelings of loneliness.

Then, during the late 50s when the persecution of Rev. Moon was very harsh, I received a message that I should escape on my own. I was given no money, and I had no place to go. I felt that I had believed in Rev. Moon and followed him on the basis of his words that we would die together or survive together, but that he was now betraying me. I began to hold a strong resentment against him. Back when we were on our way south, just after the three of us had crossed the Imjin River and were sitting to rest, Rev. Moon suddenly turned to me and asked: "What would you do if I were to abandon you?" I answered: "I would kill you and then kill myself."

You can tell from the fact that I could say something so incredible, that is, to mention the possibility of killing the Lord of the Second Advent, that I didn't understand the Principle very well then. My heart was filled with loneliness, compounded by poverty. I felt abandoned; I felt betrayed. So, I decided that I would kill Rev. Moon and then kill myself, and went to the Headquarters Church with some dynamite I took from the mine.

When I was in this position, Mr. Om Duk Moon helped me very much. At a time when I was drowning in despair, he introduced me to his younger sister. This was before the beginning of the blessings, but I committed my second mistake after Kyungju. But I refused to understand that these were my own mistakes. Instead, I felt that they were results of Rev. Moon's having abandoned me. I felt that he had forced me into betraying God's Will.

My heart was filled with resentment against Rev. Moon for having betrayed me. In addition, I was tempted with a large sum of money and so I wrote the book "Tragedy of the Six Marys." Even still, Mr. Ahn Byung-il of the Korean Church, Mr. Ishii, president of the Sekai Nippo, and others received me very warmly.

As I was staying at the Nakataya Hotel, conducting my interviews with Mr. Ishii for "I Am an Apostate," I could feel my heart growing more and more at ease. In particular, I was losing my sense of resentment. I began to understand what I had done wrong, and what I should do for the Japanese brothers and sisters. I made up my mind that I should do whatever the Japanese church headquarters wanted me to do.

The night after I made that decision, Rev. Moon appeared to me in my dream. I had dreamt of Rev. Moon on a number of occasions after leaving the church, but that night Rev. Moon appeared to me with a huge smile on his face. He said to me: "So, you've finally come around." Also, the white-haired man that I had dreamed of in the Hungnam Camp for Special Laborers appeared and said: "I'm really happy that you have repented."

The next morning, when I told this to Mr. Ahn and Mr. Ishii, they were happy for me, too, and I felt incredible joy. Later, it was suggested that I see for myself all the things that Rev. Moon is doing, and so I visited the United States.

At Belvedere, outside New York, there was a reception banquet, and I was introduced to second and third generation children of the church. Children of all races came to sing and dance to welcome us. It gave me great joy to see that, because I could see that this represented the fulfillment of the ideal of the garden of harmony that Rev. Moon had told me about all those years ago when we were in the Hungnam Camp for Special Laborers. The words that Rev. Moon had spoken in that miserable environment in Hungnam more than 40 years ago had been accomplished.

I was glad, too, to see The Washington Times. It made me understand how Rev. Moon's work is being accomplished all over the world. I saw where God has appeared to us in the form of Rev. Moon and is accomplishing His will in our midst. It was through this process that I came to the decision to write a book describing myself as an apostate. I publish this book with a penitent heart, repenting the mistaken life of faith of my past.

It is very difficult to completely erase the effects of a book that has already been published. Who will believe me; who will ever have anything to do with me again?

I know that I am coming near the end of my life, so I gathered up my courage and wrote "I Am an Apostate" as a kind of last will and testament. When I wrote "Tragedy of the Six Marys," I felt that Rev. Moon had betrayed me. Just the thought of Rev. Moon, even at night when I was asleep, would make me jump up and want to take an ax and smash his head open.

When Confucius was alive and trying to restore a natural order in this world by doing good, there was another man who also wanted to do good. But wherever he went, he found that Confucius had already been there before him and performed acts of goodness. He felt that Confucius was robbing him of his chance to be remembered in history through acts of goodness, so he decided that he would go around doing evil acts, doing the exact opposite of Confucius, in order to insure that his name would be remembered for ten thousand years. So, even today, wherever people remember the name of Confucius, they also remember the name of this other man. In the same way, I wanted that my name be remembered together with the glorious name of Rev. Moon, even if it meant that would do all terrible things in opposition to God's will.

Even though I was a person who wanted to make my mark in history by performing the worst possible deeds, I was able to repent everything and return to Father when people related to me with warm love and accepted me even for my mistakes.

If people had try to threaten me or to suppress me, I probably would have reacted with an even more forceful opposition. I would probably determined to dedicate my life to doing everything I could to work in opposition. My heart was filled with hatred and animosity that was harder than steel, but the warm love of Mr. Ahn Byung-il melted my heart. His love chased out the Satan that had taken residence in my heart; he helped me to recover the joy that I had felt at the Hungnam Camp for Special Laborers, when I had believed in Father and attended him as the Messiah.

I see how even an apostate such as myself is received by you so warmly when I repent and return to the will. Even if there are Japanese members who have done evil before God and have committed apostasy, I'm sure there is no one who has done worse things than me. I can testify with certainty that, in the same way that I have been able to return to God's will, there is a warm love in God's will that let's any of the many people who have joined and then left the Japanese Unification Church in apostasy can return. Look at me. Look carefully at my face. I'm 83 years old, and yet I look like a young man. Once I got rid of all that hatred and animosity, my heart was filled with the grace of God. I've never been so happy. True Love has made me this young. It has given me the heart of a young man, given me the new hope of the young. I want you to know that a new gate of hope has been opened; a new blessing of grace has been given so that members who have committed apostasy can return to God's will.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to those who have helped me to stand before you today in repentance and bearing a new determination. I want to take this opportunity to thank president Ishii of Sekai Nippo, Mr. Saito Toshiki, Mr. Abe Noriyuki and Mr. Takeda Shigeki for all their assistance. I pray that all the work that you are doing for God will be successful. I, too, intend to spend the remainder of my life doing whatever I can for the success of the providence of God that Rev. Moon is pursuing. I promise that I will work in step with you for the sake of God and Rev. Moon.

I pray that the love of God and True Parents will be with you and your families. Thank you.

(hanja signature)
Pak Chung Hwa
November 18, 1995
(at Tokyo Headquarters Church)

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