(4 Sep 2012) About 250 Unification Church members gathered at the Seoul headquarters of the Unification Church on Tuesday to pray and mourn the passing of church founder Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
The controversial and self-proclaimed messiah, Moon, died at the age of 92 on Monday at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong Country, northeast of Seoul, two weeks after being admitted with pneumonia.
Church members gathered at noon for a prayer session.
They cried, prayed, sang and bowed in front of Moon's portrait decorated with flowers and candles.
"He (Reverend Moon) had a lot of love, and he practiced his love," said a 40-year-old Japanese Unification Church missionary. "Even though we have various issues between South Korea and Japan, I transcend the boundary and respect him."
"We should have accomplished South Korean-North Korea unification when our father was alive. I feel like we never fulfilled filial duty, and it is really heartbreaking," said a 63-year-old Baek Seon-ja.
Moon, who was born in a rural part of what is now North Korea, founded his Bible-based religion in Seoul in 1954, a year after the end of the Korean War, saying Jesus Christ personally called on him to complete his work.
Moon began rebuilding his relationship with North Korea in 1991, meeting with the country's founder, Kim Il Sung.
In his autobiography, Moon said he urged Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, and said Kim responded by saying that his atomic programme was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to "kill my own people."
When Kim died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea, drawing criticism from conservatives at home.
The church also sent a delegation to Pyongyang after Kim Jong Il died in December and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un.
Moon's body was transferred to the church's gargantuan white palace on Mount Cheonseong overlooking the lakes and wooded forests of Gapyeong County.
His funeral will take place September 15, after a 13-day mourning period, with a massive new sports and cultural centre built recently on the church's sprawling campus accepting mourners starting on Thursday, the church said in a statement.
Moon is to be buried on Mount Cheonseong.
The church gained fame - and notoriety - by marrying thousands of followers in mass ceremonies presided over by Moon himself.
The couples often came from different countries and had never met, but were matched up by Moon in a bid to build a multicultural religious world.
Moon created a vast business empire through his church: ventures in several countries from hospitals and newspapers to cars and sushi, and even professional sports teams and a ballet troupe.
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