Always the bride: Mass wedding for thousands of ‘Moonie’ couples in South Korean church

Thousands of couples attend a mass wedding held by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, also known as the Unification Church, yesterday in Gapyeong-gun, South Korea. Some 4,000 “Moonies”, believers of the Unification Church, which was named after the founder Moon Sun Myung, attended the mass wedding. The movement began in the 1950s and 1960s when missionaries from Japan and South Korea were sent to the United States. It expanded in the 1970s and then became involved in controversy due to its theology, its political activism, and the lifestyle of its members.