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Chuk-bok Gyeol-hon (축복결혼)
On April 16, 1960, the marriage Blessing ceremony of three spiritual children and their spouses-Kim Won-pil and Jeong Dal-ok, Eu Hyo-won and Sa Gil-ja, and Kim Young-hwi and Jeong Dae-hwa-was held at the original Cheongpa-dong headquarters church in Seoul. By having performed the engagement ceremony of three spiritual children before True Parents’ Holy Wedding, True Father set the condition that three main disciples attain an ideal unity with Jesus. The Blessing ceremony of those three couples was divided into two parts: the first was to restore all material things; and the second was the ceremony itself, where three couples were married for all eternity. The second ceremony consisted of the Ceremony for the Restoration of Children and the Main Wedding Ceremony.
Chuk-bok is the Korean term used for “Blessing.” While the word itself is common in everyday language and Christian church usage, within the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) it carries a radically distinct theological meaning. In Unification theology, the Blessing is not merely a prayer or a benediction, but a sacrament effecting a change of lineage.
1. The Term Chuk-bok (Hangeul: 축복 / Hanja: 祝福)
Etymology: Chuk (祝): to pray, invoke, or celebrate / Bok (福): fortune, blessing, happiness (a culturally powerful concept in East Asia)
Literal meaning: “To pray for blessing, happiness, or good fortune to descend.”
2. Comparative Meanings of Chuk-bok
Although the same word is used, its meaning differs significantly depending on context:
(a) Korean Cultural Context (Secular / Confucian)
Chuk-bok refers primarily to earthly fortune and prosperity—wealth, longevity, health, and descendants. It is the kind of blessing exchanged during the Lunar New Year or family celebrations.
Goal: Earthly well-being (material happiness)
(b) Korean Christian Context
In Christianity, chuk-bok signifies divine grace and individual salvation. It refers to receiving God’s favor through faith in Jesus Christ, often expressed through pastoral prayers (chuk-do) at the conclusion of worship services.
Goal: Individual salvation (entry into Heaven)
(c) Family Federation (FFWPU) Context
When an average Korean hears Chuk-bok, they think ‘Good luck’. Within the Family Federation, chuk-bok refers to a sacramental change of lineage. It is not a prayer but a ritual act believed to sever the fallen blood lineage and graft the couple into God’s lineage. Reverend Moon turned a very common word (Chuk-bok = Good luck) into an exclusive theological concept (Chuk-bok = The sacrament of rebirth through the blessing of marriage).
Goal: Familial salvation (restoration of lineage)
3. The Unificationist Specificity: “Grafting” (Jeop-but-chim)
In Unification theology, the full term is often Chuk-bok Gyeol-hon (축복결혼), meaning “Blessed Marriage.” What distinguishes this from Christian marriage rites is the underlying theological mechanism, which Reverend Sun Myung Moon explained using the horticultural metaphor of grafting, drawing on Romans 11 :
Having rejected Christ and then stoned Stephen, the people of Israel, represented by the Jews then living in Palestine, had lost all rights under the covenant. However, grace is offered to all who recognise themselves as sinners, without distinction between Jew and Greek (10:13). Paul first uses his own case to prove this. He had persecuted Jesus by persecuting his own people (Acts 9:5), in such a way that his conversion made him the very example of salvation by grace (1 Timothy 1:16). Perhaps more than for others, his salvation required divine mercy and patience, but his calling and election were unquestionable (Galatians 1:15). Collectively, therefore, the people no longer had a privileged relationship with God. Nevertheless, access was wide open to every member of the people individually. They had to abandon all claims based on works and claim only grace, ready to intervene, despite their special guilt. Grace, the true foundation of relationship with God in all ages, shines forth here in a special way. Moreover, God was pleased to regard the Hebrew Christians as a group representing the people of His heart. At the moment when they merge into the new body of the Church, according to the teaching given elsewhere (cf. Ephesians 2, for example), they are at the present time... a remnant of Israel according to the election of grace (verse 5).
Humanity resembles a wild olive tree. Even if nurtured for centuries, it continues to bear wild fruit because original sin is transmitted through lineage. Moral reform or individual faith alone cannot change this.
The Blessing is understood as a “surgical” spiritual act: the wild branch is cut and grafted onto the True Olive Tree—the True Parents—thereby changing the flow of lineage. As a result, children born from Blessed couples are understood, within Unification theology, to be free from original sin.
“The Blessing is not merely for a man and a woman to live together. It is the ceremony by which the blood lineage of the satanic world is cut off and grafted onto God’s lineage.”— Sun Myung Moon, Cheon Seong Gyeong (Seoul: Seonghwa Publishing, 2006), Book 5, “The Grace of the Holy Blessing,” paras. 88–92.
4. Derived Vocabulary
• Chuk-bok Gajong (축복가정): “Blessed Family,” indicating a family grafted into God’s lineage.
• Chuk-bok-se (축복세): Blessing offering, an expression of gratitude connected to the ceremony.
• Gyo-cha Chuk-bok (교차축복): Intercultural or international Blessing, promoted as a means to overcome racial and national barriers.
610_Blessing Material (Documentation for the Blessing; focuses on marriage, family, and spiritual restoration.
630_Blessing Board (It belong to General Affairs as it deals with private and sensible matters)
640_Education (Documents focusing primarily on marriage, family, and Unification blessing rituals, with details on preparatory seminars.)
650_Related developments Reports and seminars detail the Value of Blessed Families and the Blessing Process (April 2002 to April 2014).
670_Reports-Programs (activities and teachings of the Family Federation for World Peace (FFWP) and the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), particularly concerning the concepts of True Love and the Blessing for Peace.)
680_Miscellaneous (Documents and presentations focus on blessing, marriage, and family according to the FFFP, with WHO registration guides.)
5. Fundamental concepts concerning Blessing (Chuk-bok)
This is the central sacrament of the Family Federation, considered the ‘gateway’ to Cheon Il Guk. The crucial point to understand is that this is not simply a wedding ceremony, but a ritual of changing blood lineage (from the lineage of fallen man to the lineage of God).
a) The Key Concept: The ‘Grafting’ (The Change of Lineage)
This is the most technical and important theological explanation. It is based on the image of the wild olive tree in the Epistle to the Romans (chapter 11).
"The Blessing is not just a man and a woman meeting to live together. It is the ceremony to cut the bond with the lineage of the satanic world and graft onto the lineage of God. Humanity is like a wild olive tree. Even if you fertilise it for 1,000 years, it will still produce wild olives. To produce true olives, the wild branch must be cut off and grafted onto the trunk of the True Olive Tree (the True Parents). This is the meaning of the Holy Wine and the Blessing. — This teaching is elaborated extensively in Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book 5 (“The Grace of the Holy Blessing”), where Reverend Sun Myung Moon develops the metaphor of grafting to explain the change of lineage effected by the Holy Wine Ceremony and the Blessing.
b) The Social Goal: Peace through Intercultural Marriage
This is the most famous and visible aspect (international marriages). Reverend Moon saw the Blessing as the ultimate political tool for peace.
"The shortest and surest way to achieve world peace is through intercultural marriage (Gyo-cha Chuk-bok) . If an American man marries a woman from an “enemy” nation, and they love each other, the two nations will no longer be able to wage war against each other. Half of their blood will flow in the veins of their grandchildren. When blacks and whites, Easterners and Westerners unite through the Blessing, racism will disappear in a single generation. — Sun Myung Moon (Autobiography: As A Peace-Loving Global Citizen, Chapter: ‘Uniting the World Through Marriage’).
c) The Blessing as Responsibility: A Passport, Not the Destination
Within Family Federation theology, the Blessing is often described pedagogically as a permit or qualification—not an end in itself, but the starting point of a lifelong responsibility. It grants entry into Cheon Il Guk, yet the realization of the ideal family requires sustained ethical effort, education, and fidelity. The Blessing is an eternal vow before Heaven, not merely a moral aspiration. Within the theology of the Family Federation, the Holy Marriage Blessing is understood not merely as a ritual, but as a covenant made before Heaven.
Reverend Sun Myung Moon repeatedly emphasized that the Blessing establishes an indissoluble marital bond (one that transcends personal will and even physical death):
“For those who have received the Blessing, divorce is absolutely forbidden. The Blessed couples are eternal; they are not meant to separate, even after death.” — Sun Myung Moon, True Family and World Peace, speech delivered November 1, 1992, Belvedere, Tarrytown, NY, in Selected Speeches of Reverend Sun Myung Moon (New York: Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity).
In Peace Message 2, he further clarified that the Blessing is a covenant made before God and Heaven, grounding peace at the level of family and lineage rather than political institutions. “Peace Message 2: God’s Model of the Ideal Family and Nation,” in Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: The Peace Scriptures of Cheon Il Guk (Seoul: Seonghwa Publishing, 2014), 36–50.
Hak Ja Han Moon reaffirmed this position in her Foundation Day address, emphasizing that the Blessing constitutes an eternal covenant before Heaven, explicitly excluding divorce for Blessed couples. — Hak Ja Han Moon, Foundation Day Address to Blessed Families, Cheongshim Peace World Center, Gapyeong, South Korea, January 13, 2013. Official English translation, Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
Accordingly, receiving the Blessing implies a public and sacred commitment to become an ideal family—one that embodies fidelity, permanence, and responsibility for future generations—while recognizing that the realization of that ideal requires lifelong effort and education.
Methodological Note
Quotations are drawn from officially published or archived English translations. Where multiple English renderings exist for Korean originals, paraphrase is used in the main text and exact citations are provided in the notes.
Sources & Further Reading
Primary Sources
• Moon, Sun Myung. “True Family and World Peace.” Speech delivered November 1, 1992, Belvedere, Tarrytown, NY. In Selected Speeches of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. New York: HSA-UWC.
• Moon, Sun Myung. “Peace Message 2: God’s Model of the Ideal Family and Nation.” In Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: The Peace Scriptures of Cheon Il Guk, 36–50. Seoul: Seonghwa Publishing, 2014.
• Moon, Hak Ja Han. Foundation Day Address to Blessed Families. January 13, 2013. Cheongshim Peace World Center, Gapyeong, South Korea. Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
Secondary & Contextual Reading
• Moon, Sun Myung. As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen (autobiography). Seoul: Gimm-Young Publishers, 2009.
• Barker, Eileen. The Making of a Moonie: Brainwashing or Choice? Oxford: Blackwell, 1984. (For sociological context.)
• Kim, Young Oon. Unification Theology. Barrytown, NY: Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1980.
This selection is intended to support educational and documentary use and does not exhaust the extensive corpus of Unification movement publications.
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