This Week in History: January 19–25

“This Week in History” briefly lists significant events in the history of the Unification Church, the lives of the Founders and world events that are momentous to Unificationists. Most items are marked according to the solar calendar. Items marked “H.C” correspond to the Cheon-gi or Heavenly Calendar, which is based on the lunar calendar. This installment covers the week of January 19th to 25th.

January 21-24, 1974

“Day of Hope Days” and “Hope and Unification”

In Oakland, California, Mayor John H. Reading proclaimed the period from January 21-24, 1974, as “Day of Hope Days.” Single days of “Hope and Unification” were proclaimed in Berkeley and Hayward, and on January 21, 1974, Rev. Moon was awarded the key to the city of Berkeley by Mayor Warren Widener.

January 21, 1974

Unification Theological Seminary

HSA-UWC purchased the former St. Joseph’s Seminary

The former St. Joseph’s Seminary, situated on 250 acres in Barrytown, New York, was purchased on January 21, 1974, at a cost of $1.5 million. The property became the Unification Theological Seminary. Also, by 1974, the church purchased nearly 300 acres of greenbelt land in Tarrytown, New York.

January 26 – February 9, 1992

CARP held workshops in Europe

From January 26 to February 9, 1992, The Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) held 27 workshops at 18 different workshop sites in the Crimea south of the Ukraine for 3,160 students. In the spring, from March 20 to April 10, 1992, the first Divine Principle workshop for high school teachers and students from throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States shattered the previous workshop records with 7,229 participants. They filled 40 workshops at 23 workshop sites. That summer the largest series of Divine Principle workshops in Unification Church history educated 18,042 guests at 129 workshops held at 26 sites over a period of 8 weeks in 5 different regions of the country.

January 22 – March 8, 1995

American and Japanese WFWP presidents, Mrs. Nora Spurgin and Mrs. Motoko Sugiyama, cross the “Bridge of Peace”

Sisterhood Ceremonies

Between January 22 and March 8, 1995, 4,000 Japanese women traveled to Washington, D.C. to be paired with an equal number of American women in eight separate sisterhood ceremonies sponsored by the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP). These were set to coincide with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. Each ceremony included a dramatic “bridge-crossing” during which a representative group of the Japanese delegates crossed over a special bridge, met their American counterparts in the middle where each bowed, embraced the other, and then walked down together, hand in hand. Following the highly successful Washington, D.C. conferences, WFWP sponsored Japanese-American sisterhood ceremonies in eight U.S. cities during the remainder of 1995, with several thousand more women from both countries participating. In 1996, WFWP conducted a number of “African-American/Caucasian-American” ceremonies. Activities in America inspired Austrian-Croatian, Czech-German, Russian-German, Hungarian-Slovakian, and Italian-Slovakian sisterhood ceremonies conducted by WFWP chapters in Europe.

January 27, 2001

True Parents with dignitaries at Assembly 2000

True Father appointed Ambassadors for Peace

At Assembly 2000 in August, 2000, True Father proposed the establishment of an interreligious assembly at the United Nations including the appointment of “religious ambassadors.” During two International Leadership Seminars in Washington, D.C., Ambassadors for Peace were appointed. In May, 2001, 260 additional leaders were appointed at an international symposium in New York. In October of the same year, True Father directed the American movement to carry out International Leadership Conferences in every state with a goal of appointing 2,000 new Ambassadors for Peace by the end of the year.

Compiled by Lymhwa Kim.