Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church

Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han preside over a mass blessing ceremony.

The Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony (축복결혼식), often abbreviated to Blessing, is a large-scale wedding, or a marriage rededication ceremony, sponsored by the Unification Church. It is given to married or engaged couples. Through it, members of the Unification Church believe that the couple is removed from the lineage of sinful humanity and engrafted into God's sinless lineage. As a result, the couple's marital relationship—and any children born after the Blessing—exist free from the consequences of original sin. (Children born into Blessed Central Families are known as Blessed Children or second generation, third generation, etc.)

For Unificationists, these interracial, interreligious and international mass marriage ceremonies symbolize the family as the hope for peace. The Blessing ceremony has become the most famous ritual of the Unification Church.[1] The people who receive the Blessing are called "Blessed Central Families (축복중심가정)" who are conducive to the establishment of Cheon Il Guk (천일국,天一國,the Kingdom of Heaven.)

  1. ^ Elijah Siegler, 2007, New Religious Movements, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0131834789, p. 33.

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