29th Anniversary Celebration in Korea

Mike Breen
May 1, 1983

True Parents with their youngest daughter Jeung Jin Nim during their recent trip to Korea

Six hundred invited guests attended the Unification Church's 29th anniversary celebration with True Parents at the Little Angels Performing Arts Theater on May 1.

After the dinner, Father told the gathering of prominent Korean ministers, academics, Buddhist leaders, politicians, businessmen and journalists that building up the church's foundation had been difficult.

"Many people, especially Christian leaders, criticized me," he said. "But I never attacked them in return. Through our interfaith movement we have tried to unite with them."

"First we walked to them, then we went by bicycle. Now we are driving to them. In the future we will go by plane. Eventually they will understand!"

Father explained his goals and emphasized the need to overcome communism. He had become very famous in the world, he said, but all he had done was live for God and not for himself. He asked his audience to do the same. "I think that anyone who lives for the society, nation and world has fortune on his side," he concluded.

Col. Bo Hi Pak told the gathering about the purpose and the work of the Washington Times and of CAUSA, confessing that when Father first instructed him to start these projects he failed to see their significance. "Now I can understand," he said.

Col. Pak illustrated his talk with a slide show.

Congratulatory addresses were given by three prominent figures. First, Kyungnam University president Yun Tae Rim congratulated the church on its 29th anniversary. Rim said he had attended a meeting at the church's Chungpa Dong headquarters in 1955. Disappointed by the smallness of the group, he thought it would not last. Now he believes that perhaps Rev. Moon is the oriental religious leader that an American philosopher had once predicted would come to supersede Western Christianity.

Congratulations were also offered by Hyung Gun Lee, a retired four-star general and former president of the Korean Anti-Communist League; and Phong Chu Lee, president of the Korean Religious Leaders Association, who said the Unification Church had now become one of the religions of the world.

After the speeches, the guests were treated to a show by the Little Angels.