Sun Myung Moon

Born in 1920 in what became North Korea, Moon Yong-myeong grew up in a family that converted to Christianity when he was young. Through the 1940s and 1950s he was jailed repeatedly by both North and South Korean authorities as he developed his religious teaching, formally establishing the Unification Church in Seoul in 1954. He wrote Divine Principle as the movement's scripture and positioned himself and his wife Hak Ja Han as the "True Parents" to followers who became known as Moonies. Moving to the United States in 1971, he drew attention through public speeches and expanded into media and business - founding News World Communications, parent of The Washington Times, and backing South Korea's Tongil Group. In 1982 he was convicted of filing false tax returns and sentenced to eighteen months in prison, a case that sparked protests from clergy who saw it as religious persecution. He cultivated ties across the ideological spectrum, meeting with figures from Gorbachev to Farrakhan, and drew criticism when his Blessing ceremonies attracted participants from other faiths, including an excommunicated Catholic archbishop.