Hak Ja Han
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Hak Ja Han or Hakja Han Moon is the co-leader of the Unification movement with her husband, Rev. Sun Myung Moon. She is called the "True Mother" of mankind by Unification Church members, and is considered to possess dual messiahship with her husband. Sun Myung Moon has appointed her to succeed him upon his death. Her role in the Unification movement has increased since the early 1990s, touring various parts of the world under the banners of various Unification organizations, including the Women's Federation for World Peace.
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[edit] Early life
Hak Ja Han was born in the village of Sinli in the Anju-gun, North Pyongan Province, presently in North Korea, on January 6 (lunar), 1943. Her parents were devout Christians; her father was a disciple of the evangelist Rev. Young Do Lee. The Unification movement claims that the family of Hak Ja Han was persecuted by the North Korean Communists because of their religiousity: When she was five years old, Hak Ja Han and her mother were arrested by communist police and jailed for nearly twelve days. After their release, Hak Ja Han, her mother Mrs. Soon-ae Hong and her grandmother fled their village to Taegu where they lived through the Korean War.
[edit] Marriage to Sun Myung Moon
Hak Ja Han's family later moved to Chunchon, where her uncle was living, and she soon graduated from elementary school. During this period Hak Ja Han, along with her mother, joined the newly formed Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, popularly known as Unification Church. In 1956 she met Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, for the first time, and on April 11, 1960, at the age of 17, she married the 40 year old Sun Myung Moon. The church's followers regard this day as The Holy Wedding of the True Parents.
[edit] Hakja Han Moon's Mission
[edit] Role as True Mother of mankind
Unification Church members regard her husband Rev. Sun Myung Moon as the Second Coming of Christ, and the two of them together as the "True Parents" of humanity. They achieved this status on January 1, 1968, at the end of their "7-year course" of marriage together, at which point they were regarded as God incarnate on earth, representing the perfection of God's masculine and feminine aspects. Unification theology teaches that Jesus achieved this perfection and incarnation of God only on the individual level (a lesser accomplishment than that of Sun Myung Moon and Hakja Han Moon due to Jesus not being able to marry and raise up a bride).
The primary mission of True Parents is to engraft all people on earth and in the spirit world to their sinless lineage, removing them from the satanic lineage established at the fall of humanity (the original sin in the Garden of Eden).
[edit] Criticism
Hakja Han Moon and Sun Myung Moon's oldest son Hyo Jin Moon had repeated problems with substance abuse, pornography, infidelity, violence, and run-ins with the law. When he was 19, Sun Myung Moon had picked a 15 year-old wife for him, Nansook Hong, who bore him 5 children. After years of abuse, she fled the Moon estate with her children and in 1998 published a tell-all book, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family (ISBN 0-316-34816-3). For many Unification Church members, this book was a revealing portrait of the way Hakja Han Moon and Sun Myung Moon had raised their children, and caused a great deal of soul-searching. (See for example this review of the book by a church member.)
Hong revealed a lack of closeness in the family, and sometimes a lack of good judgement, such as when Hakja Han Moon would hand her son large amounts of cash in spite of his cocaine addiction. It did not seem to Hong that Hakja Han Moon was very good at parenting. "[Hyo Jin] assumed Mother had come into Cottage House and taken [the money] in order to curtail his drinking. I was doubtful. I had seen no evidence that either the Reverend Moon or Mrs. Moon tried to exercise any control over their children's wild behavior." (Hong, p.103)
Hong also reports that Hakja Han Moon "spent so much time at chic clothing emporiums that her youngest son once answered, 'She shops,' when his schoolteacher asked him to describe his mother's life work" (p.6).
[edit] Courting influential people
Increasingly over the years, Hakja Han Moon has joined her husband in courting heads of state and other influential people, religious leaders, and those interested in world peace. (The phrase "world peace" appears in a number of Unificationist organizations.) She gave a speech to the women of the World Media Conference in October, 1981 and to the women of the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences in November, 1981. She was interviewed by Soviet media in 1989; her interview appeared in the Religion and Society section of Za Rubezhom on June 12.
The following year, on their 30th wedding anniversary, April 11, 1990 , Rev. Moon and Hakja Han Moon met with Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin.
In December 1991, Hakja Han Moon traveled with her husband to North Korea to meet with dictator Kim Il Sung for the purpose of uniting the two Koreas.
[edit] Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP)
In 1992, Hakja Han Moon, together with her husband, founded the Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP). She was its international president. She campaigned for WFWP and worked to develop a global base for the new organization, giving the Federation's inaugural speech in 113 cities in 12 countries, and in three different languages within an eight-month period. This accomplishment was surpassed in 1993, during which she spoke in 43 nations and in all 50 of the United States.
WFWP was officially inaugurated on April 10, 1992, when, despite inclement weather, 150,000 women from 72 countries gathered at Seoul Olympic Stadium. Following this international rally, Hakja Han Moon spoke in cities and towns throughout Korea. That fall, speaking in Japanese, she addressed a rally of 50,000 women in the Tokyo Dome. Afterward, she delivered speeches to large audiences in Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sendai and Sapporo. Later that year, Hakja Han Moon continued her worldwide campaign with an eight-city tour of the USA in eight consecutive days. Following her U.S. tour, she spoke in eight more cities in Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy and finally in Moscow. Hakja Han Moon also visited the Pacific Rim, where she spoke in Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines before addressing 200 leaders of the Women's Federation of China (no relationship to WFWP) at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. In July of 1993, after speaking throughout America, Hakja Han Moon's tour culminated with addresses on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations, delivering a message of peace and religious reconciliation. While crisscrossing the continent, she was welcomed by hundreds of public officials from Maine to Hawaii, including 35 Governors, 131 Mayors, 25 US Senators and hundreds of prominent citizens and organizations.
[edit] Hakja Han Moon Day
A call for the declaration of National Parents Day was entered into the Congressional Record in both the U. S. Senate and House, and the California State Senate issued a Certificate of Recognition. President Clinton signed into law a bill authorizing the last Sunday in July be recognized as, "National Parents Day." In dozens of states and cities, the day of her speech was declared [by whom? citation needed] the "National Parents Day," the "Day of Women and World Peace," or "Hakja Han Moon Day." Senator Orrin Hatch introduced her to the audience of US Senators, Congressmen, their aides and other dignitaries on Capitol Hill in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The culmination of the American tour came when Mrs. Moon spoke to Ambassadors, counselors, attaches, UN representatives and other prominent guests in Conference at the United Nations. His Excellency Stoyan Ganev, President of the United Nations General Assembly, introduced her. Ambassadors from 67 nations were in attendance with nearly 100 nations represented in total.
[edit] Church Weddings
Since 1961 she with Rev. Moon have presided over Blessing Ceremonies for married and engaged couples. Until the 1990s almost all those taking part were Unification Church members. They presided over the marriage blessing of millions of couples by satellite from Washington DC's RFK stadium in 1997, in Madison Square Garden in 1998, and in Seoul's Olympic stadium in 2005. Worldwide, more than 360 million couples have accepted Reverend and Mrs. Moon's blessing on their marriage. This number was achieved in the 1990's by members passing out wine, grape juice, or other drinks spiked with "Holy Wine," which is said to include a very small amount of Sun Myung Moon's blood. The idea was that this "restored" the bloodlineage of fallen people from Satan's back to God's, which is the main purpose of "The Blessing." A number of Unificationists have said that some of the methods used for distributing the Holy Wine went too far.
[edit] The True Family
- Hakja Han Moon has 13 children and at least 21 grandchildren.
[edit] Awards
Hakja Han Moon is the recipient of a number of international honors and awards. For her humanitarian work and for her contribution to world peace, she has received honorary doctorates from Argentina's La Plata University and from the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut. In addition she received the Medal of Brazil from that country's Ministry of Education.
[edit] Trivia
- Fishing with Rev. Moon is one of her favourite pastimes.
- When two of her children became interested in equestrian events, Hakja Han Moon was a leading advocate for her husband's buying the Deer Park Equestrian Center in upstate New York, which is one of America's finest arenas for equestrian competitions.
- Rev. Moon and Hakja Han Moon founded the Little Angels Performing Arts School in Seoul, Korea. Its ballet corps, called the Little Angels Children's Folk Ballet, has performed before world leaders and royalty.
- Hakja Han Moon and Rev. Moon are patrons of the New York City Symphony.
- Hakja Han Moon and Rev. Moon founded the Universal Ballet Academy in Washington, DC, which trains young dancers with masters from the Kirov Ballet of St. Petersburg.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- An introduction to Unificationism (new religious movement led by Sun Myung Moon and Hakja Han Moon) including both support and criticism from current and former Unificationists.
- Website about Rev. and Mrs. Moon
