Updated March 26, 2026
The “Ewha Womans University Scandal” emerged from the root of founder Sun Myung Moon’s “pikareum sex rituals”
▲ Top left: Founder Sun Myung Moon and his wife
週刊ポスト Shūkan Post magazine October 15, 1993, pages 212-215
⟨ Third scoop – hidden story excavated ⟩ The two previous scoops are listed below.
Exclusive interviews with Mrs Kim Jeong-ok and others
● Report by journalist Ōbayashi Takeshi
Five years after the outbreak of the Korean War, capturing the hearts of people devastated by civil war, a new religious movement rapidly grew. That religion is now known as the Unification Church. What lay behind that rapid growth? Inevitably, one encounters the “Ewha Womans University Scandal.” This report traces the true nature of the incident, in which founder Sun Myung Moon was also arrested, based on testimonies from those involved at the time.
▲ Mr. Ōbayashi interviewing Mrs. Kim Jeong-ok, who in 1955 was the Dean of Students at the Ewha Womans University.
“Female university students and women who were toyed with”
As early autumn arrives, female students dressed in bright clothing walk across the campus. Under the clear autumn sky, the prestigious Ewha Womans University feels like a separate world even within the city of Seoul.
In April 1955, after the peninsula had been divided into North and South following the Korean War, a major scandal involving the Unification Church (the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity) occurred on this campus. That was thirty-eight years ago.
It is what is known as the “Ewha Womans University Scandal.” In the course of investigating the roots of the Unification Church, I came upon this incident.
The “blood-sharing or pikareum sex ritual,” was said to have existed in the early days of the Unification Church. This was reported on in the two previous issues of this publication. Testimonies and materials obtained in this investigation vividly describe the reality of that “pikareum ritual.”
Clarifying the reality of this “pikareum ritual,” which is shrouded in many mysteries, also means approaching the roots of the Unification Church and founder Sun Myung Moon himself.
❖ Added information:
▲ These 12 Ewha Womans University students were expelled after refusing to stop attending the Unification Church in 1955. Some Ewha staff members had been in Pyongyang in 1946-48 and were well aware of Sun Myung Moon’s arrests for adultery, financial exploitation, pikareum and bigamy. The husband of Ok Se-hyun described how his wife was stealing his money to give to Moon. The staff had warned the students of Moon’s character. Soon-wha Choi is in the front row on the left.
Newsweek June 14, 1976
“In 1948, Moon was arrested in North Korea for what his followers say were his religious and anti-Communist activities; his opponents maintain he was jailed for practicing ritual sex. … Seven years later, after he had fled south during the Korean War and founded his Unification Church, Moon once again ran afoul of the authorities. According to the Rev. John E.W. Kim, a Presbyterian pastor whose church was near Moon’s church in Busan at the time, ‘Part of Moon’s theology was that women converts could only be purified by sleeping with him.’”
So what kind of incident was the Ewha Womans University Scandal, in which Sun Myung Moon himself was arrested? Professor A (female) of the Ewha Womans University History Research Office says the following:
“Students today probably do not know that such an incident once occurred at this university. But I remember it because I was a female student here at the time. A newly appointed English female professor named Han Chung-hwa taught the principles of the Unification Church (this is how the church is known in Korea) both in the women’s dormitory and in the classroom. It was said that they lit candles and danced in the dormitory, and this spread to other professors and many female students. It became a major incident.”
Looking at newspapers from that time, headlines such as “Female university students and women toyed with” and “Illegal confinement of a female university student” appeared, and it was reported in Japan and Korea as a major bizarre incident. Amid the unstable political situation immediately after the end of the Korean War, Professor A continues, the entire nation had fallen into a momentary, pleasure-seeking mindset.
“North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) occupied Seoul during the war, and Ewha Womans University also fled to Busan and established a branch campus. I heard that around that time, Professor Han and others were in Busan helping to create a book of the principles (Divine Principle) for the Unification Church.”
Around the same time, there was also a Unification Church disturbance at Yonsei University. Ahn Byeong-mu, chairman of the Korea Theological Research Institute and emeritus professor at Hanshin University, says:
“The one who was active in trying to gain followers at Yonsei University was a female professor named B. She also came to recruit me, and she was an indescribably beautiful woman. [Her name was Professor Yang Yun-yeong.] I wondered why someone like her would be involved in a new religion. At that time, she said, ‘Founder Moon always withdraws into a room one-on-one with female believers to talk. Once he begins speaking, he continues for hours in a very high tone, and the women become devout believers.’ In the end, this professor was dismissed, and several students were also expelled.”
❖ Photo added:
▲ Professor Yang Yun-yeong 梁允永
The disturbances involving the Unification Church at Ewha Womans University and Yonsei University eventually developed into the arrest of founder Moon. The charges were “violation of the Military Service Act” and “illegal confinement” for allegedly confining a 22-year-old female student from Yonsei University for three days.
Moon, arrested on July 4, 1955, spent the next three months in prison. Those arrested were not limited to Moon alone; church leaders at the time, including Kim Won-pil and two brothers Eu Hyo-won and Eu Hyo-yeong, and their cousin Eu Hyo-min, were also arrested. [The relationships within the Eu family corrected. Some text was omitted and the following 1955 newspaper reports added as evidence.]
❖ Added information:
Dong-A Ilbo, July 6, 1955
Is the Unification Church a heretical religion? …
“… Moon allegedly failed to complete military service registration procedures, and is reported to have increased his stated age from the mid-thirties to forty-three. It is further alleged that he illegally confined a female believer, Moon Young-il (pseudonym), aged 22 who was a [Yonsei] university student, for three days or more, during which time he [starved her and] attempted to coerce her into adopting the faith.
❖
Seoul-shinmun, July 7, 1955
“Four married women were violated” by Sun Myung Moon or members of the Unification Church
❖
Dong-A Ilbo, July 14, 1955
Six individuals arrested and sent to the prosecutor — Leader Moon and other members of the ‘Unification Church’.
As previously reported, the … case which has been under investigation by the National Police Bureau, has now reached an initial conclusion. On the 13th, six related individuals were sent under arrest to the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office, together with one set of case documents.
At present, those involved in this case are being interrogated on charges including violation of the Military Service Act, forgery of documents, and violation of the National Security Act. However, according to one investigative official, in addition to these charges, seven cases of adultery between the leader Moon and female followers have been confirmed. It is therefore anticipated that a new investigation into adultery offenses will be launched.
As of now, however, no formal complaints have been filed by the husbands of the women involved. Since adultery is a crime prosecuted only upon complaint by the injured party (a “crime subject to private prosecution”), the investigation cannot presently proceed on those grounds.
Furthermore, whether these alleged adultery cases are legally established is expected to provide a criterion for determining whether the group constitutes a “heretical religion.” Accordingly, close attention is being paid to the future direction of the prosecution’s investigation.
List of Related Persons
(Sent to the prosecutor under arrest)
• Sun Myung Moon (文鮮明) — (Leader)
Charges: Illegal confinement [of a female student], violation of the Military Service Act
• Kim Won-pil (金元弼)
Charges: Violation of the National Security Act, violation of the Military Service Act
• Eu Hyo-min (劉孝敏)
Charge: Violation of the Military Service Act
• Eu Hyo-yeong (劉孝永)
Charge: Violation of the Military Service Act
• Eu Hyo-won (劉孝元)
Charge: Forgery of documents
• Choi Soon-shil (崔淳實) (female)
Charge: Mediation of sexual misconduct
❖
Choi Soon-shil was the sister of Choi Soon-wha who gave birth to Sam Park. Sun Myung Moon was his father.
Pak Chung-hwa: “At this time [July 1955], Teacher Moon was being held in a detention cell at the Jungbu Police Station. At Jungbu Police Station, Kim Deok-jin’s brother-in-law, Kim Seon-hwan, was serving as a police officer, so it was relatively easy to obtain visitation.
Choi Soon-shil, since she was still young, was caught by leading questions during the officer’s investigation into illicit sexual relations and was therefore detained, but through her [wealthy] father’s persistent negotiations she was not indicted and was released after one week.” The Tragedy of the Six Marys, chapter 3, page 105
▲ Choi Seong-mo was the father of Choi Soon-shil and Choi Soon-wha aka “Annie Choi”. His wife, Lee Deuk-sam, had been groomed over time by Sun Mung Moon and persuaded to leave her husband and hand over wealth.
❖
Robert B. Boettcher and Gordon L. Freedman, “Gifts of Deceit”
“Rumors reached the American Embassy that Moon was a ritual womanizer. Reportedly, young girls underwent sexual initiation into his cult; he would thus purge them of the Satanic spirits that inhabited Eve and lead them to the Divine Principle.
Professor James Huntley Grayson, PhD, “Korea: A Religious History” (New York: Routledge Curzon, 1989, revised 2002)
“In July 1955, Mun was imprisoned for gross immorality, but was subsequently released.” (page 210) “As one of the most important functions of the Lord of the Second Advent is the physical restoration of mankind, Mun selects suitable marital partners for the faithful and conducts sacred ceremonies of marriage in large groups. It should be noted with regard to the purging of physical sin that Mun has been accused of acts of gross immorality which are denied by church authorities.” (page 211)
▲ “Misleading women into fornication through eloquence” was one 1955 newspaper headline. Left to right: Kim Won-pil, Eu Hyo-yeong, Eu Hyo-min and Sun Myung Moon in court on July 29, 1955.
September 22, 1955 Dong-A Ilbo 동아일보
文敎主에二年 統一敎會事件求刑
문교주에 이년 통일교회사건구형
Two-Year Sentence Sought for Leader Moon in Unification Church Case
As previously reported, following the examination of facts at the first hearing of the Unification Church Case, which was held on the 21st, Prosecutor Kang Seo-yong (姜瑞龍) requested the following sentences for the defendants:
• Sun Myung Moon (文鮮明) (leader) — Two years’ imprisonment
• Eu Hyo-won (劉孝元) — Two years’ imprisonment
One year and six months’ imprisonment for each:
• Kim Won-pil (金元弼), Eu Hyo-min (劉孝敏), Eu Hyo-yeong (劉孝永)
Their acquittals, and release after dark in October, were purchased. See LINKS below.
▲ Moon with three of the four Eu family members who followed him in the 1950s: standing, Eu Hyo-won. Front row: Eu Hyo-min, Kim Won-pil and Eu Hyo-yeong. Hyo-won was the first president of the UC, but he left the UC in the last period of his life. He spent his last nine months hospital. Pastor Kim Deok-jin happened to meet him a week before he passed. Hyo-won explained many things to him, and also to his cousins, Eu Hyo-min and Eu Shin-hee, who then both left the Unification Church. Eu Hyo-yeong left many years later.
Pastor Deok-jin Kim’s encounter with Hyo-won Eu in the hospital is described HERE.
Hyo-won Eu died on July 24, 1970 at 56 years of age. He spent the last few days of his life in a relative’s house. Moon made a big church funeral for Hyo-won Eu, but did not himself attend.
❖ End of added material
Eu Hyo-won died some years ago. The other two cousins later left the church. Eu Hyo-min had a younger sister named Eu Shin-hee. As already reported in this series, Shin-hee was also a partner in the pikareum sex ritual with a former close associate of founder Sun Myung Moon.
Kim Jeong-ok (82), who was the Dean of Students at the time of the Ewha Womans University Scandal, now lives a comfortable life in Seongbuk-dong, Seoul. But her memories remain vivid.
“The president of Ewha Womans University at the time was Kim Hwal-lan [also known as Helen Kim], who is my aunt.”
❖ Photo added:
▲ Kim Hwal-lan 金活蘭 was also known as Helen Kim.
“I gave everything—my house, land, and savings—to the Unification Church”
Kim further spoke about Han Chung-hwa (mentioned earlier), the female English professor who had gained prominence through Unification Church evangelism at the time:
“Han Chung-hwa was an unfortunate person whose husband had been abducted to North Korea, and both of her children were suffering from serious illnesses [A son, Samuel, was mute].
I heard that she met Sun Myung Moon in Busan, and was told that if she devoted herself completely to the Unification Church, her husband would return and her children’s illnesses would be cured. From then on, she became a fanatical believer. I heard she was lecturing on the Unification Church both in the dormitory and in the classroom, so I called her in and reprimanded her.
❖ Two photos added:
▲ Professor Han Chung-hwa 韓忠嬅 with her son, Samuel, outside the Seoul Unification Church. 서울教會
▲ Professor Han Chung-hwa is in the back row on the right. Professor Choi Won-bok is in the row in front of her, at the right. The photo was taken in May 1956 at the Cheongpa-dong church, Seoul.
Inset on the right: Professor Han with her son, Samuel.
She said, ‘It is freedom of religion,’ so I told her that lectures on the Unification Church were not permitted in Methodist classrooms or dormitories. I also asked whether one would teach Christianity in a temple. The next day, she submitted her resignation. She told me, ‘If you do not believe in the Unification Church, you will fall into hell someday.’
“About ten years later Han Chung-hwa visited my home. She was in a shabby state. She told me she had left the Unification Church, and cried, saying, ‘I gave everything—my house, land, and savings—to the Unification Church, but my husband did not return and my children’s illnesses were not cured.’ She died several years after that.”
What kind of fate awaited the members from Ewha Womans University who joined the Unification Church under her “teachings”?
▲ View of the Ewha Womans University campus in 1993.
In trying to uncover the truth of the Ewha Womans University Incident, I visited Eu Hyo-min, one of the parties involved in the incident, several times at his home in Seoul. However, Eu remained tight-lipped and, even after leaving the Unification Church, would not speak about the truth.
However, when I asked him to confirm, “Was there some kind of deal with the regime, as is rumored, regarding Sun Myung Moon being found not guilty despite his arrest?” he did not deny it.
He then told the following story. When Eu was arrested in connection with the Ewha Womans University Incident, he received provisions almost daily. The person [Choi Seong-mo] bringing them was the father of a certain young woman [Choi Soon-shil] who was also being held in detention.
“That girl’s father would bring beer and various things around 10 or 11 at night. At such times, he would even have us called out from our cells. It was the hottest, most humid time in July, so I remember feeling relieved.” It is said that this father later became a major conglomerate figure who owns a famous building known to all Koreans today.
❖ Photo and information added:
▲ The 63 Building on Yoido Island in Seoul at dawn. It was the HQ for Choi Seong-mo’s conglomerate (chaebol). After the war, he founded Korean Flour Milling (now East Asia Flour Mills). That laid the foundation for the new East Asia Group which acquired a number of companies, including Korea Life. Since his father’s death 17 years ago, the eldest son, Soon-yeong, took over and was leading the business in 1993.
Soon-shil attended Yonsei University, while her sister Soon-wha attended Ewha Womans University. There were expulsions of UC members at both universities.
That daughter [Choi Soon-shil], too, must have been a victim of the Ewha Womans University Incident, says one of the people involved at the time.
Why, even after leaving the church, does Eu Hyo-min remain so silent? One former member I met in Seoul says:
“Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church aimed to create a large extended family group by forming relationships with many women, and through the strong bonds of that group, to dominate the world.
If one were to map out the relationships among current Unification Church executives, it would become a massive scandal that could shake Korea. But now many of them have become successful and do not want those facts to come to light. Moon’s ‘pikareum blood-sharing’ produced many successful people. In that sense, ‘pikareum’ may have been a success.
The Eu family was once a core family within the Unification Church. Those who know everything are in a position where they can only pretend to know nothing at the same time.”
He points out that it is only natural that Eu Hyo-min, a man who knows too much, remains silent.
The “difference” between the mass wedding and the Holy wedding ceremonies
[Members of the 36 couples and 72 couples are also known as the “Royal Couples”.]
In the present-day Unification Church, the “pikareum sex ritual” is not practiced. However, if the testimonies obtained in this investigation and the contents written in the materials are true, then “pikareum” was actively carried out in its early days. So when did the Unification Church stop “pikareum”? And what was the reason for stopping?
“Why did the Unification Church stop ‘pikareum’?” When I posed this question to a well-informed source familiar with the inner workings of the Unification Church, he briefly glared at me. Then he let slip the following meaningful words:
“The main reason Sun Myung Moon was acquitted after being arrested in the Ewha Womans University Incident, and that afterward those who left the Unification Church and exposed its inner workings were successively imprisoned, was the connection between the Unification Church and the regime at the time.
Look back at the history of the Unification Church’s group weddings. As for why ‘pikareum’ was stopped—let’s just say it was because Sun Myung Moon was ordered by a certain person to stop it.”
The Unification Church mass weddings started in 1960. Although it was mentioned in the previous issue, the first wedding [36 couples held in smaller groups in 1960-61 and combined to make 36] and the second wedding [72 couples held in June 1962] are called ‘Holy Weddings’, and are clearly distinguished from the subsequent mass weddings.
❖ Photos added:
▲ Sun Myung Moon and Eu Hyo-min, center.
▲ Two groups from the 36 couples Holy Wedding. They were known as Royal Couples.
▲ The 72 couple wedding held in June 1962. The ceremony was done in three groups of 24. It took all day for the rituals to be completed. Eu Hyo-min described the process. They were also known as Royal Couples.
Eu Hyo-min was originally one of the 72 couples in this second holy wedding ceremony. [He was promoted to the 36 couples to replace a couple that had left the UC.]
I visited him once more and asked: “Are the holy wedding ceremonies the weddings of those who participated in ‘pikareum’ with Sun Myung Moon? Is that why they are distinguished from the group weddings of ordinary members?”
Eu Hyo-min replied, “Since when did you start thinking that?” but only repeated, “Now is not the time to explain the full picture.” And he added: “The Unification Church often has members who do not know each other horizontally. It is a completely vertical society with Sun Myung Moon at the apex. That is precisely why secrets are preserved.”
Of the 36 couples in the first holy wedding ceremony, nine have already left the Unification Church. However, it is likely that none of them will speak the truth.
As can be seen by referring to the Unification Church’s “rebuttal” regarding the Ewha Womans University Incident, after that incident the church’s missionary activities in Korea rapidly lost momentum.
To overcome this “crisis,” the Unification Church, in the summer [of 1958], sent Choi Bong-choon (Japanese name: Nishikawa Masaru) on a boat to be smuggled into Japan to do missionary work. Then in the following year, 1959, Kim Young-oon was sent to the United States, and in 1960 Pak Bo Hi was also dispatched to the U.S. This marked the beginning of the full-scale overseas missionary expansion of the UC.
Thirty-eight years after the Ewha Womans University Incident, many missing links still remain in the roots of the Unification Church.
● Unification Church “rebuttal” and “position”
1. Regarding the claim that Reverend Sun Myung Moon was arrested in the Ewha Womans University Incident and that newspapers at the time carried headlines such as “female students toyed with by the founder,” no such facts exist whatsoever. From July 4 to 13, 1955, Reverend Sun Myung Moon and four other leaders of the Korean Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (hereafter referred to as “our association”) were suddenly arrested. The charges were “evasion of military service” (violation of the Military Service Act) and “illegal confinement,” and the newspapers of the time, without verifying the facts, wrote articles based on rumors that were contrary to the truth.
Despite thorough interrogation, the prosecution could not bring charges for “illegal confinement,” and although Reverend Moon was indicted on the charge of “evasion of military service,” the alleged falsification of age to avoid service was carried out by his disciples, and “Reverend Moon was unrelated to that,” resulting in a not guilty verdict. It is clear that all of this was a false accusation.
2. Up until the 36-couple wedding ceremony, the church was still small in scale, and the ceremonies were conducted only among a limited inner circle, which is why they were called “holy wedding ceremonies.” From the 72-couple ceremony onward, as the scale grew and spread into society, the more general term “group wedding ceremony” came to be used so that ordinary people could understand. Therefore, “group wedding ceremonies” are no different from “holy wedding ceremonies.”
Your magazine suggests that “holy wedding ceremonies distinguish those who participated in ‘blood-sharing pikareum’ with the founder from ordinary members in group weddings,” but in our church there is neither doctrinal nor actual existence of anything like “pikareum,” and to claim that the distinction in terminology separates such individuals from ordinary members is nothing more than a forced interpretation.
– Unification Church Public Relations Department report
▲ “At Yonsei University [in 1955] there was also a disturbance surrounding the Unification Church,” says Ahn Byeong-mu 安柄茂, Chairman of the Korea Theological Research Institute.
End of Shūkan Post magazine report
Sun Myung Moon’s theology for his pikareum sex rituals with the 36 couple wives
• In the case of Teacher Moon → he is in the position to restore through indemnity the failure of Jesus
Since Jesus didn’t have original sin, he wanted to have a change of blood lineage [ceremony] with Mary Magdalene, so that he could leave sinless descendants. However, Jesus was not able to have a family and leave children free from original sin in the world, so he failed.
↓
Sun Myung Moon [comes with pure blood, and he] must perform the pikareum blood cleansing ritual. He must leave a new lineage free from original sin.
[In summary, including points from notes by other workshop participants: Sun Myung Moon has the duty to do the pikareum sex ritual with the 36 wives to cleanse them of original sin. The husbands must overcome any feelings of jealousy they may have. They should be happy that their wives are being freed from original sin by Sun Myung Moon. The husbands can then be cleansed by having sex with their wives. Moon had to go this path because of the failures of John the Baptist, Jesus and Kim Baek-moon.] LINK
⟨ First of Four Exclusive Scoops ⟩ by Takeshi Ōbayashi 大林高士
A Full Confession of the Contents of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s “Pikareum Sex Rituals”
⟨ Second of Four Exclusive Scoops ⟩
Moon’s first wife, Choi Seon-gil, and Kim Deok-jin interviewed
⟨ Fourth of Four Exclusive Scoops ⟩
“My family has been the prey of the Unification Church.” They even used a ‘Honey Trap’
Japanese:
週刊ポスト1993.10.1, 8, 15 and 1993.11.5
「文鮮明教祖の「血分け儀式」内容全告白 元側近・金徳振牧師」
Sun Myung Moon’s “Gigantic lie” by Eu Hyo-min (36 couple)
Professor Kim: “The Ewha University reputation damaged for some years”
Kim Deok-Jin – Someone who actually practised Moon’s sex relay
Eu Hyo-min, one of the 36 couples, gives his testimony:
exploited by Moon, then shunned by Moon.
Moon’s pikareum lineage began from Hwang Kuk-ju
Moon talks about the 1955 Ewha Womans University sex scandal
The original 1955 Korean newspaper articles:
1955년 이화여대에서 일어난 문선명 섹스 스캔들
統一教會 事件 통일교회사건 1955.7.4.
The six ‘wives’ of Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon’s second wife – Kim Chong-hwa in Pyongyang
The Choi family’s entanglements with Sun Myung Moon
Kim Myung-hee, the third wife of Sun Myung Moon
The lie that Kim Myung-hee was raped in Japan