Sun Myung Moon: Messianic leader and business mogul

Unification Church founder Moon died at age of 92 on September 3.

SEOUL: Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon built his first place of worship from scrap materials some 60 years ago and went on to establish a controversial religious and business empire spanning the globe.

Moon, a South Korean who died Monday aged 92, was born to a farming family in what is now North Korea.

He said he was inspired by a vision at age 15 in which Jesus personally chose him to complete his task of bringing peace and harmony to the world.

Rejected by Korean Protestant churches, he founded his own church, which now claims some three million members worldwide, although some experts argue the figure is inflated and could be more realistically put at several hundred thousand.

Moon was tortured and sent to a labour camp while preaching in communist North Korea after World War II, according to his website biography. He was freed when guards fled before advancing US forces during the Korean War.

After trekking to the South's southern city of Busan as a war refugee, he reportedly built his first church there from discarded army ration boxes.

In Seoul in 1954 he founded the Unification Church, terming it "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity".

It sent missionaries to Japan and the United States in the late 1950s and Moon made his first world tour in 1965, before taking up US residence in the early 1970s.

It was in the United States that the church came to international prominence as it attracted large numbers of adherents and began to forge a business empire with ride-ranging interests in manufacturing and the media.

Its success prompted accusations that Moon was fostering a cult that brainwashed its followers and encouraged them to break off all ties with their families.

The cult image was fuelled by mass weddings that saw up to 30,000 identically-clad followers married to spouses personally selected by Moon in huge ceremonies held in sports stadiums.

In 1974 he met President Richard Nixon at the White House and controversially urged Americans to forgive their leader for the Watergate scandal.

The following year Moon sent missionaries to 120 countries.

In 1976, the Unification Church was investigated as part of the "Koreagate" political scandal, which involved the Korea Central Intelligence Agency allegedly funnelling bribes and favours to members of the US Congress.

Moon survived the scandal, but was indicted in 1981 for tax evasion in what his church claims was a conspiracy aimed at having him deported from the United States.

Moon was convicted and served 11 months of an 18-month prison sentence.

The church's teachings are based on re-interpretations of the Bible and have been condemned as heretical by some Christian organisations.

"Moon's view of God is quintessentially Korean, combining Shamanist passion and Confucian family patterns in Christian form," wrote Seoul-based author Michael Breen in his book "The Koreans".

"His God is the miserable parent who suffers in lonely agony in a world of unfilial and evil children."

The church's business empire spans dozens of firms involved in construction, heavy machinery, food, education, the media and even a professional football club.

It owns the Washington Times newspaper and the United Press International news agency.

Moon, who met North Korea's then-ruler Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang in 1991, also has business interests there. A church-affiliated firm, Pyeonghwa (Peace) Motors, established a joint car making business in the North in 1999.

In 2007 the church finished construction of a "World Peace Centre" in Pyongyang.

Moon had 14 children with his second wife, Hak Ja Han, and several are involved in his empire. Hyung Jin Moon, the youngest of his seven sons, succeeded his father as the church's most senior leader in 2008.

The church's business arm, the Tongil Group, is currently chaired by Moon's fourth son, Kook Jin, and there have been reports - denied by the church - of rifts within the family over control of Moon's vast business legacy.