Won Pil Kim
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Won Pil Kim is an early follower of Sun Myung Moon. He first met Moon in July 1946 in Pyongyang, North Korea, when Kim was 18 years old. Members of the Unification Church consider him to be Moon's first disciple.
Kim played a significant role in Rev. Moon's life on several occasions. He nursed him back to health in October 1947 after Moon was nearly beaten to death by communist prison guards. When Moon was imprisoned by communist authorities in 1948 in the Tong Nee Special Labor Concentration Camp at Heung Nam, North Korea, Kim visited him when allowed by the prison guards, bringing him small amounts of food.
After United Nations soldiers liberated Heung Nam prison in 1950, Kim escaped from North Korea together with Moon and another disciple named Jung Hwa Pak to Busan in South Korea, where they arrived January 27, 1951. There Kim lived together with Moon in a shack built out of cardboard ration boxes and mud. He supported himself and Moon by painting pictures for American GIs at a nearby army base as Moon wrote down many of his theological ideas that would eventually form the core of the book Divine Principle.
Kim was one of the founding members of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (commonly known as the Unification Church), which was started by Moon in 1954. He was married ("blessed" in Unification Church terminology) on April 16, 1960, to Dal-ok Chung, as one of the first three couples married after Moon in the Unification Church. That ceremony carries an important theological significance for Unification Church members. Kim still plays an active role in the church.
