Lineage of Legends

Canada · 1965 – 1991

The Unification Movementin Canada

From True Father's 24-hour visit to Ottawa in July 1965, through the schoolteachers Linna Miller and Marie Leckrone who opened the Toronto mission in 1968, the Yankee Stadium bus convoy of 1976, the Daily Mail-style "Moonstalkers" press storm of 1977-78, and the centralised Werner years — a chronological reading of the Canadian Unification Movement, drawn from Franco Famularo's 1994 history, ending with Mrs Moon's 1993 speech to the Canadian Parliament.

A History of the Unification Church in Canada, 1965–1991 — Franco Famularo (1994), archived at tparents.org.
Compare with another country →All countries
Era 1

I. First Footprints

1965 – 1968

True Father · Terre Hall · Linna Miller · Marie Leckrone

True Father blesses a Holy Ground on Parliament Hill on his first visit, an American pioneer in Vancouver fails within a year, and two schoolteacher cousins from Virginia finally plant roots in Toronto in the summer of 1968.

1 – 2 July 1965

True Father's first visit · Holy Ground on Parliament Hill

Rev. Moon arrives in Ottawa on 1 July 1965 from Washington D.C. via New York on the 98th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, accompanied by Mrs Won Pok Choi and Mr Sang Ik Choi. Canada is the third country on his first world tour of forty nations. On Friday 2 July he establishes and blesses a Holy Ground on Parliament Hill, just west of the Centre Block, where a tall tree marked the centre until Canadian government officials had it cut down in 1979. He departs the same evening for New York en route to Panama; the visit lasts little more than 24 hours.

Source →
24 October 1965

Terre Hall opens the first centre · 3328 West First, Vancouver

Terre Hall, an American who had joined David S.C. Kim's group in the United States, arrives in Vancouver, British Columbia on Children's Day and announces the establishment of the United Chapel in Canada. The November 1965 New Age Frontiers lists 3328 West First as the address of the first Unification centre in Canada. Her first convert prospect is Donna Pirri, a 21-year-old student at UBC. By March 1966 illness forces her to withdraw to Oregon, and the Vancouver mission is discontinued by 1967.

Source →
15 June 1968

Young Oon Kim sends Linna Miller and Marie Leckrone to Toronto

At a farewell party in Washington D.C., Miss Young Oon Kim — who had done post-graduate work at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto in 1948-51 on a United Church of Canada scholarship — commissions schoolteacher cousins Linna Mae Miller (b. 1938, Michigan) and Marie Leckrone (b. 1937, Flint, Michigan) to pioneer Canada. Both are Cedar Lane Elementary School teachers from Vienna, Virginia and graduates of Manchester College, Indiana. They drive from Washington on Sunday 16 June and arrive in Toronto the same afternoon, intending to stay only the summer.

Source →
18 June 1968

First Toronto centre · 88 Isabella Street, Apt. 704

Three days after arriving in Toronto, Linna and Marie meet Martin Carbone, who sublets them his bachelor apartment at 88 Isabella Street, Apt. 704, in downtown Toronto. The one-room flat serves as residence and teaching place: by the end of June eleven guests have heard the Divine Principle there, with one sister teaching on the balcony while the other lectures inside.

Source →
10 August 1968

Vince Walsh · first member to join in Canada

Vince Walsh, a Newfoundlander hitch-hiking westward, meets Linna and Marie in Toronto's Queen's Park, changes his travel plans, journeys south to Washington D.C. to hear the full Divine Principle, and becomes the first person to join the Unification Church in Canada. Katharine Bell, a 25-year-old UBC graduate working as a secretary at a Catholic high school, follows on 28 August as the first Canadian woman to join. By summer's end the originally-planned goal of three members — Walsh, Bell, and the Englishman Peter Golding — is met.

Source →
Era 2

II. A Community Emerges

1968 – 1972

Linna Rapkins · Carl Rapkins · Katharine Bell · Alan Wilding · Robert Duffy

Linna stays on, marries fellow Unificationist Carl Rapkins in the Blessing of 43 Couples, leads the small community through visa trouble, and hands leadership to a Canadian. The house at 76 Scollard Street becomes the home of the Canadian movement for three and a half years.

13 September 1968

Move to 98 Avenue Road · the second centre

With the Isabella Street flat too small, Linna and the first three members move to a larger second-floor flat at 98 Avenue Road in Toronto, two blocks from Yorkville and a ten-minute walk from the University of Toronto. Linna writes that they "step on a hippie every time we go out the door". By the end of 1968, ninety-six guests had been introduced to the Divine Principle and four people had joined; the cold Toronto winter inspires Linna to write the song "We Promised to Win".

Source →
17 September 1969

HSA-UWC registered as a Canadian charity

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity is registered as an unincorporated charitable organisation in Toronto by P.E. Roy of the Charitable Organizations Section of Revenue Canada. By this point the Canadian community has moved to 76 Scollard Street — a ten-room row house in downtown Toronto — and consists of Carl and Linna Rapkins, Vince Walsh, Katharine Bell, Alan Wilding, Peter Golding and Larry Boyle.

Source →
28 February 1969

Blessing of 43 Couples · Linna marries Carl Rapkins

In a ceremony conducted by Rev. and Mrs Moon in Washington D.C., thirteen American couples — including Linna Miller and Carl Rapkins, an early member of Miss Kim's group who had joined in California in 1962 — are blessed in matrimony. This is part of a larger Blessing of 43 Couples worldwide: eight European couples (married in Germany on 28 March 1969) and twenty-two Japanese couples (married in Japan on 1 May 1969). Carl moves to Canada to join Linna in April.

Source →
10 January 1970

Miss Young Oon Kim's first return visit to Toronto

Young Oon Kim visits Toronto for two weeks — her first return to the city in almost twenty years since her University of Toronto post-graduate studies. She meets with the small community, contacts former professors and friends, urges members to complete their university degrees, and addresses a group of old colleagues. Some thirty-two guests hear the Divine Principle that month largely thanks to her presence. The visit launches a forty-day witnessing campaign at the eighteen-storey Rochdale College on Bloor Street, where members hold a lecture series under the title "Christian I Ching".

Source →
July 1970

Linna Rapkins forced to leave Canada · Katharine Bell takes over

Visa problems force Linna Rapkins permanently out of Canada; Carl had already established residence in Buffalo, New York the previous April. Leadership of the small Canadian community passes to Katharine Bell — the first Canadian-based national leader — at Miss Kim's suggestion. Two years almost to the day after the mission was founded, Vince Walsh departs on 17 June 1970 for Winnipeg, Manitoba to open a second Canadian centre.

Source →
12 – 18 December 1971

True Father's second visit · five days at 76 Scollard Street

Refused a US visa on the unfounded suspicion that he had been a communist in Korea in 1968, True Father, Mrs Moon, Won Pok Choi, Young Whi Kim and Mitsuharu Ishii arrive in Toronto from Los Angeles at 8:10 p.m. on 12 December. They refuse a Park Plaza Hotel room and insist on staying with the members at 76 Scollard Street, sleeping on foam mattresses on the floor. The members offer Rev. Moon $1,000; he adds $1,000 of his own and returns the envelope. He visits the US Consulate on University Avenue, takes the members to Niagara Falls on 14 December, and lectures into the early hours every night. On 17 December, through the intervention of Senator Strom Thurmond, his US visitor visa comes through, and he departs for Washington D.C. on 18 December. He later explained that as Canada stands "in the position of Eve" (an extension of England), he had to pass through Canada to link his victorious foundation to America.

Source →
10 April 1972

Holy Ground at Queen's Park, Toronto

Following instructions from Rev. Moon, Katharine Bell blesses a Holy Ground at Queen's Park in Toronto — the park near the Ontario Provincial Legislature where the first four Canadian members had been met. A few days later Katharine departs for a six-month stay in Korea and Japan; interim leadership passes to Alan Wilding.

Source →
Era 3

III. Centralisation Begins

1973 – 1977

Robert Duffy · Alan Wilding · Sung San Lee · Terry Brabazon

HSA-UWC is provincially incorporated in Ontario in May 1973, Alan Wilding plants a mission in Montreal that August, fund-raising and the 588 Spadina HQ arrive, and Robert Duffy becomes the first national leader of a centralised Canadian church — climaxing in the 25 buses he sends to Yankee Stadium in June 1976.

9 May 1973

HSA-UWC provincially incorporated in Ontario

Following the 1972 Charitable Incorporation Act, HSA-UWC is provincially incorporated in Ontario. Original signers are Katharine Anne Bell (President), Marvi Helene Ranniste (Secretary), and Bruce John Thomas Casino (Treasurer). The same year, fund-raising door-to-door with flowers begins in June at $2.00 a bunch — borrowed from the American practice — and the church purchases its first building, an older three-storey house at 588 Spadina Avenue in Toronto, in May 1974 for use as the national headquarters.

Source →
1 August 1973

Alan Wilding opens the Montreal mission · 4235 Rue Marquette

Alan Wilding travels by bus to Montreal at Rev. Moon's suggestion, prays in the chapel of a hospital near the central bus station, and the next day takes an apartment at 4235 Rue Marquette, Apt. 201 as the first Montreal centre. The first person to hear the Divine Principle in Montreal visits on 9 August; Ronald Marchildon, a chiropractic doctor, becomes the first member to join in Quebec on 11 September. On 14 October 1973 Wilding registers the Association Pour L'Unification du Christianisme Mondiale (AUCM) for Quebec.

Source →
January 1974

Vancouver mission re-founded by Anne Ranniste

Katharine Bell and Anne Ranniste travel to Vancouver on 22 December 1973 to begin the second attempt at a permanent Pacific-coast mission. Anne opens a centre at 1873 Nelson Street, Apt. 603. Sheila Cummings joins her in February, and in April Jorg Heller — a naturalised Canadian originally from Germany — becomes the first Vancouver member. HSA-UWC is provincially incorporated in British Columbia on 4 July 1974.

Source →
1 November 1974

Robert Duffy appointed national leader

Robert Shapland Duffy (b. 1949, Kirkland Lake, Ontario) — who met the Unification Church in London in late 1967 and was the first Canadian national in the world to join, on 1 January 1968 — assumes the role of national leader of the Canadian Unification Church. He is twenty-five years old. The appointment is recommended by David S.C. Kim and made by Rev. Moon at a dinner at the Belvedere Estate in Tarrytown, New York in late October. Membership at the end of 1974 stands at twenty-six active and twelve associate members.

Source →
24 February – 8 March 1975

Alan Wilding's 350-mile walk for Canadian unity

Returning from the Blessing of 1,800 Couples in Korea (8 February 1975, where he was matched to Michiko Miyamura of Japan), Alan Wilding sets out from Toronto City Hall on 24 February and walks roughly 350 miles to Montreal, arriving at Montreal's City Hall on 8 March. The walk is meant as a symbolic condition for unity between French and English Canada. He sleeps three nights in police-station jail cells, one in a farmhouse, and is interviewed by Montreal's CKGM radio on 10 March.

Source →
23 – 24 April 1976

New Hope for a New Canada tour begins · Chateau Laurier, Ottawa

The 'New Hope for a New Canada' three-city tour opens with a banquet on 23 April in the Renaissance Room of the Chateau Laurier Hotel, Ottawa for fifty leading citizens, and a public meeting on 24 April at the Colonel By Auditorium of the University of Ottawa for sixty guests. Duffy delivers the Canadian adaptation of Rev. Moon's Day of Hope speech. The tour continues at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal (7 May) and the Royal York Hotel in Toronto (21 May), each meeting setting up the bus convoy to follow.

Source →
1 June 1976

Yankee Stadium · 25 free buses from Canada

Twenty-five bus-loads — approximately 1,000 people — travel through the night from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto to the Bicentennial God Bless America Festival at Yankee Stadium, New York City. The Montreal Star of 28 May 1976 carries a three-quarter-page advertisement: "GET INTO THE SPIRIT! LET'S BE GOOD NEIGHBOURS! FREE BUSES TO THE FESTIVAL." The whole operation costs roughly $45,000, including a $25,000 loan from the American church which is paid back in July. At the post-event meeting on 2 June, Rev. Moon tells Duffy "I will never forget your name" and announces — to everyone's surprise — that the Washington Monument rally will be brought forward by a year.

Source →
Late September 1976

True Father's third visit · tuna fishing off Nova Scotia

Days after the Washington Monument Festival on 18 September, Rev. and Mrs Moon and twelve of his earliest Korean disciples — including Won Pil Kim and Sang Kil Han — fly via Montreal to Halifax to survey the tuna grounds off Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. No tuna are caught. Returning, they meet Alan Wilding, Anne Caze and Enid Somerset for lunch at Dorval airport. Wilding confesses he had once doubted Rev. Moon's 1971 predictions about America; Rev. Moon retells the conversation in his 3 October Tarrytown speech.

Source →
5 February 1977

International Rally for World Freedom · Holiday Inn, Toronto

Over 1,000 people gather in the Commonwealth Ballroom of the Holiday Inn in downtown Toronto for the International Rally for World Freedom, organised primarily by Sung San Lee and Alan Wilding. Petro Bilaniuk, professor of theology at the University of Toronto, gives the keynote on "Christianity and the Communist Threat". Supporters include the Hungarian Freedom Fighters, Bulgarian National Front, Polish Combatants Association and others; letters of support arrive from Ontario Premier William Davis, Toronto Mayor David Crombie, and MP Perrin Beatty.

Source →
15 May 1977

Duffy transferred to Ireland · Martin Porter appointed

At a meeting on 15 May 1977 Robert Duffy is transferred to Ireland, where he will serve as national leader until early 1983. Martin Porter, former national leader of the Unification Church of Italy, is appointed to replace him. Several senior members — including Sung San Lee and Terry Brabazon — had written to Rev. Moon and David Kim concerning Duffy's leadership, though Brabazon later said he had hoped only that David Kim would offer counsel, not that Duffy would be removed.

Source →
Era 4

IV. The Porter Era

1977 – 1983

Martin Porter · Marion Porter · the deer farm · Clearstone Lodge

Martin and Marion Porter arrive from Italy on 1 June 1977. True Father visits Toronto unannounced on 17 September. A real-estate portfolio — Admiral Road, Clearstone Lodge, Avenue du Musée, 87 Bellevue Avenue — and the deer breeding farm are built. The Daily Mail-style press storm "Moonstalkers" hits in late 1977; the Dan Hill Report exonerates the church in 1980. Porter closes his term with the 1982 "Canada at the Crossroads" national tour.

1 June 1977

Martin and Marion Porter arrive · a married couple leads the church

Martin Porter (b. 27 March 1942, Hampshire, England) — who joined the Unification Church in Rome in early 1966 and led the Italian movement for ten years — arrives in Canada with his second wife Marion Dougherty and their children Tim and Hanida. He is thirty-five. Marion was among the first members to join the Italian movement in 1965 and had earlier helped pioneer the British Isles. The Porters add a mature, married element to a Canadian church then composed mostly of single members in their twenties.

Source →
17 September 1977

True Father's fourth visit · sanctifies 80 Admiral Road

Rev. and Mrs Moon arrive in Toronto on a few hours' notice from Niagara Falls. Porter delays them with a tour of the CN Tower — then the tallest free-standing building in the world — and the Emperor Chinese Restaurant while members frantically prepare the new centre. Rev. Moon then sanctifies the just-purchased 80 Admiral Road house with Holy Salt, hands Porter $10,000 for renovations, and gives detailed instructions: develop anti-communist activities and the newspaper, hold Canadian Day of Hope rallies, develop more members and training courses, look into pairs of spotted deer and bears, develop a lumber industry, a fishing industry, and an exhibition of the "100 Greatest Canadians". Porter later notes: "True Father's speech and instructions became the focal point of our activities for the next 6 years."

Source →
December 1977 – January 1978

Moonstalkers · Josh Freed's six-part series in the Montreal Star

Josh Freed publishes Moonstalkers, a six-part front-page series in the Montreal Star, recounting how he and friends "rescued" Benji Carroll, a 28-year-old Montreal Jewish college graduate who had joined the church in California. The articles are reprinted by The Hamilton Spectator and The Calgary Herald, win the Canadian National Newspaper Award, and are expanded into the 1980 book Moonwebs: Journey into the Mind of a Cult (Dorset Publishing, Toronto). In 1982 Moonwebs becomes the film Ticket to Heaven, which wins Canada's Genie Award. Freed's three-page "Canadian Appendix" becomes the primary press source on the Canadian church for years.

Source →
May 1978

Clearstone Lodge purchased · 95-acre workshop site

A 95-acre property on Rice Lake near Cobourg, Ontario — Clearstone Lodge — is purchased for $270,000. It becomes the permanent workshop site for the Canadian movement. Around the same time, twenty European members from Britain and France — including Nic Farrow, Trevor Brown, Rosemary Guy, Marie Jose Baut, Catherine Labitte, Douglas Burton, Peter Hume and Andre Maes — arrive to boost the Canadian church. The first red deer is purchased and transported to Clearstone in September 1978, launching what becomes one of the largest elk breeding operations in North America.

Source →
24 June 1978

Celebrate Canada Festival · Nathan Phillips Square

The Canadian Unity and Freedom Federation (CUFF) holds the Celebrate Canada Festival at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto. Proclamations and letters of appreciation arrive from Queen Elizabeth II, Governor General Jules Léger, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, seventeen foreign embassies, most provincial premiers, and Toronto Mayor David Crombie. Internal estimates put attendance at 21,000; the Toronto Star reports about 4,000. The same month the church newspaper Our Canada launches, edited by John Potjewyd with Alan Wilding as publisher and Stoyan Tadin as art director; it runs until spring 1984 with a peak circulation of 40,000.

Source →
June 1980

The Dan Hill Report · government inquiry clears the church

Daniel G. Hill — appointed by Ontario Attorney General Roy McMurtry on 24 October 1978 — completes the 773-page Study of Mind Development Groups, Sects and Cults. The report concludes: "In the light of the evidence at hand, there seems to be no area in which the people of Ontario would be served by the government implementing new legislative measures to control or otherwise affect the activities of cults, sects, mind development groups, new religions or deprogrammers." The Unification Church had not formally co-operated but granted a "hospitality" meeting and participated in interviews.

Source →
1980 – 1981

Kidnappings and forcible deprogrammings

A wave of kidnappings hits the Canadian church. Elizabeth Wyckoff is held for three days in Delta, B.C. from 16 September 1980 after being lured by a "friend"; Christine Preisler and Dyllis Henkins are abducted in Vancouver; Barbara Christie is held in Toronto for two weeks in November 1981. John Abelseth is abducted twice in 1981, the second time held for 75 days in Calgary. After CBC's The Fifth Estate glorifies an abduction on 21 October 1980, Martin Porter posts a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of abductors of Unification Church members.

Source →
18 March 1982 – 15 March 1983

"Canada at the Crossroads" · seven-city national speaking tour

At Rev. Moon's suggestion, Porter conducts a Canadian version of the American Day of Hope tours: Vancouver (Hyatt Regency, 18 March 1982), Edmonton (Hotel McDonald, 21 April), Halifax (Chateau Halifax, 5 August), Winnipeg (Westin, 16 September), Ottawa (Chateau Laurier, 13 October), Montreal (Chateau Champlain, 24 November) and finally Toronto (Westbury Hotel, 15 March 1983) — the last advertised under the headline "Moon's Man in Canada Speaks". 400 people attend in Toronto. Robert Duffy, returned from Ireland, tells the Toronto Star the church hopes to grow from 1,000 to 10,000 active members in coming years.

Source →
1 July 1982

Blessing of 2,075 Couples · Madison Square Garden

About 50 members of the Canadian Unification Church participate in the mass wedding of 2,075 couples officiated by Rev. and Mrs Moon at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It marks a turning point: the Canadian church, previously composed mostly of single, unattached individuals, begins its transformation into a movement of married couples with children.

Source →
August 1983

Porter transferred to Alabama · Paul Werner appointed

At a Leaders' Meeting at Belvedere in August 1983, Rev. Moon transfers the Porters to manage the Master Marine Shipbuilding and Seafood Processing operation in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. The Werners — who had been running those Alabama industries since December 1977 — are appointed to Canada. The Porters had not foreseen the change; Porter at that point was planning a new speaking tour and was negotiating the purchase of a 228-acre Baltimore, Ontario farm.

Source →
Era 5

V. The Werner Years

1983 – 1988

Paul Werner · Christel Werner · MFT · outreach to the clergy

Paul (b. 1927, Pommern) and Christel Werner — among the first Westerners to join, German, deeply evangelical, having previously led Austria, Germany and Alabama — arrive on 1 September 1983 to a small Canadian church and apply a high-discipline, charismatic, centralised style. The Associate Membership drive of 1984 yields 4,327 signatures, the food-distribution programme ICUSA launches, Rev. Moon visits Clearstone twice (1987, 1988), and the 1988 directive sends pioneers to every province.

1 September 1983

Paul and Christel Werner arrive in Toronto

Paul Werner — first Unificationist missionary to Austria in May 1965, then ten years' national leader of Germany (1969-77), then six years building Master Marine Shipbuilding in Alabama — arrives in Canada with his wife Christel. They are in their mid-fifties. Paul sets an immediate target of 300 new core members within a year, closes all centres except Vancouver and Montreal, consolidates the membership in Toronto, and launches three consecutive 40-day witnessing campaigns. Over 700 guests visit the Bellevue Avenue centre in the first two campaigns; only a handful join.

Source →
8 April – 31 July 1984

Associate Membership Drive · 4,327 signed in 80 days

With the full-time recruitment approach not bearing fruit, Paul Werner conceives an Associate Membership drive: two 40-day periods asking the public not to join the church, but simply to associate, receive literature and attend meetings. By 31 July 1984, 4,327 people have signed Associate Membership forms — 2,815 in Toronto, 1,336 in Montreal and 176 in Vancouver. Shirley Inamori calls it "Revival in Canada" in Today's World. Few become active members, but it marks the largest membership-style outreach the Canadian movement ever undertakes.

Source →
20 July 1984

Rev. Moon's imprisonment opens the door to clergy outreach

Rev. Moon begins serving his sentence at Federal Prison in Danbury, Connecticut on 20 July 1984 on charges of conspiring to evade $7,300 in income tax. Over 40 religious organisations representing more than 160 million Americans appeal to the US Supreme Court in his defence. Canadian Unificationists form an Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Freedom in August 1984 chaired by Petro Bilaniuk, and from 2 January 1985 begin visiting Christian clergy across Canada with the Outline of the Principle Level 4 and three Divine Principle video tapes. By the end of 1988 over 4,000 clergy have been contacted and 200 are receiving the Unification News regularly.

Source →
September 1984

ICUSA food distribution · Toronto

Two Canadian Unificationists, Joe McWilliams and Robert Van Lane, launch a Canadian chapter of the International Clergy United For Social Action food-distribution project — modelled on the seven-million-dollar American programme that supplied 250 eighteen-ton trucks to clergy nationwide. By the end of 1986, ICUSA Canada has distributed 163,000 pounds of food through more than forty participating churches in the Toronto area. The project is wound down in early 1987.

Source →
15 March 1986

Interdenominational Revival Meeting · Volunteers of Christ Center

Under the theme "Christian Unity: The Basis for Revival", 1,000 people from more than 20 Toronto churches — divided almost equally along racial lines — gather at the Volunteers of Christ Center in Toronto, led by Portuguese evangelical Rev. Paulo Ferreira. Franco Famularo, Toronto director of the Unification Church of Canada, gives the keynote; Pastor Neville Clarke gives the altar call. The success of the meeting leads to the founding of the Unification Alliance on 1 June 1986, registered with Famularo as President, Clarke as Vice-President and Robert Duffy as Secretary General.

Source →
25 – 28 June 1987

True Father's fifth visit · Clearstone Breeding Farms

Rev. and Mrs Moon, four of their youngest sons (Kook Jin, Kwon Jin, Young Jin and Hyung Jin) and staff (Peter Kim, Ki Byung Yoon, Mike McDevitt and others) arrive at Clearstone Breeding Farms in Roseneath, Ontario at 9:15 p.m. on 25 June after driving from Irvington via Niagara Falls. Rev. Moon fishes for two days on Rice Lake, asking Peter Hume to locate the lake's deepest point. He encourages the membership to grow and tells Paul Werner: "We would rather have a few kidnappings than nothing. This is the time when people recognise Father." He hands Werner $10,000 as seed money for a sable breeding operation.

Source →
18 – 19 June 1988

True Father's sixth visit · the directive to send pioneers to every province

Rev. Moon, Mrs Moon, three of their children, Bo Hi Pak and staff arrive at Clearstone at 5:30 p.m. on 18 June 1988. After dinner on the lawn, Rev. Moon asks each husband to share kind words about his wife, then turns to the future of the Canadian church. He directs Paul Werner to send pioneers to each of the ten Canadian provinces: "Tomorrow you dispatch people to all ten provinces. Do not hold in all the young people and major members under your wing." The following day pairs depart: Mubina Jaffer and Jane Sharpe to St John's, the Wellers to Halifax, the Casavants to St John, the Brennans to Winnipeg, the Browns to Regina, Jacques Fontaine to Edmonton, and (in time) Douglas and Fumiko White to Vancouver. Helene Dumont returns to Quebec City. The mass exodus from Toronto effectively dismantles the centralised church.

Source →
20 December 1988

Werner reassigned as Oceania Itinerary Worker

At a leaders' meeting in Irvington, New York on 20 December 1988, Rev. Moon announces several leadership changes: Paul Werner is reassigned as World Itinerary Worker for the Oceania Region. Asked to recommend a successor for Canada, Werner suggests Franco Famularo, then proposes Robert Duffy and Wesley Ramage for senior roles. Famularo is asked to serve as interim national leader until Rev. Moon makes a final decision.

Source →
Era 6

VI. Decentralisation and Quebec

1989 – 1990

Robert Duffy · Helene Dumont · the Quebec City chapter

Robert Duffy returns to lead the church on 8 April 1989 — his second term. The Werner-era organisation is dismantled, members spread thinly across the country struggle to support themselves, charitable status (lost in 1982 over a missed filing) drags through Revenue Canada audit, and the only real membership growth happens in Helene Dumont's Quebec City chapter, where she pioneers a French-Canadian "Life after Life" seminar series.

8 April 1989

Robert Duffy's second term · appointed national leader

At the end of an international leaders' meeting in New York on 8 April 1989, Rev. Moon appoints Robert Duffy as national leader of Canada for his second term — twelve years after his first term ended in May 1977. Duffy had spent 1977-83 as national leader of Ireland. He and Franco Famularo embark on a cross-country trip later that month: Montreal, Quebec City, Saint John, Halifax, then Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver — praying at the grave sites of historic Canadians (Marguerite Bourgeoys, Bishop Laval, the Marquis de Montcalm, John A. Macdonald, John Diefenbaker, Louis Riel, William Lyon Mackenzie among others) "to mobilise the spiritual world".

Source →
January 1988

Helene Dumont returns to Quebec City

Helene Dumont — born in La Pocatière, Quebec in 1947, formerly a Sister of Charity ("Grey Nun") in the Quebec convent for three years before leaving in the late 1960s, joined the Unification Church in Toronto in 1979 — returns to Quebec City to restart outreach there. With Daniel Heroux and Sylvain Morin she rebuilds the chapter through street and university witnessing; by June 1988, seven full-time members have joined. The Perons (Jocelyn, an architect, and Suzanne) move from Montreal to help.

Source →
July 1989

Quebec City centre purchased · Boulevard Laurier, Sillery

Because of consistent membership increase in Quebec City, a house is purchased on Boulevard Laurier in Sillery, a suburb of Quebec City, as the permanent regional centre. New members continue to join — Alain Marcotte, Annie Dufour, Guy Delisle, mostly students from the University of Laval. The Quebec chapter, unlike the rest of the country, is on the rise.

Source →
May 1989

Helene Dumont launches the Life-after-Life seminars

Concluding that French-Canadians are interested above all in the topic of life after death, Helene Dumont begins a series of public seminars called "Conference sur la Vie apres la Vie". The first seminar attracts two people; by 1990 the seminars regularly draw between forty and one hundred twenty people. About 80% of participants are women aged 25-60. Talks are held in restaurant banquet rooms, community centres and hotels in Quebec City, St-Georges-de-Beauce, Trois-Rivières, Montmagny, Lévis and Sept-Îles.

Source →
Autumn 1990

Helene Dumont on Quebec City television · Teleplus Channel 24

Through the astrologist Marie-Claude Nadeau, Helene Dumont begins twice-monthly appearances on Teleplus Channel 24 in Quebec City, giving short presentations on the Divine Principle — mostly on life after death — to a French-Canadian audience throughout 1990-91. By June 1991 the Quebec City chapter has about seventy-five members across four membership tiers (Center Core, Home Core, Associated Home, Associate), and the entire national MFT consists of French-Canadians who joined in Quebec City since 1988.

Source →
January 1990

Meeting with Pierre Trudeau in Montreal

Robert Duffy and John Bellavance meet former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in his Montreal office on behalf of the Summit Council for World Peace, in advance of the April 1990 Moscow conference where Rev. Moon meets President Mikhail Gorbachev. Trudeau cannot attend the Moscow conference but the meeting is judged a success. Through parallel efforts, former Governor General Edward Schreyer attends the Moscow conference and is present at the meeting with Gorbachev.

Source →
Era 7

VII. Regionalisation and the New Era

1991 – 1993

True Father · Mrs Moon · the four regions

Rev. Moon visits Canada twice within a fortnight in June 1991, fishing on Rice Lake and Lake Ontario. On 18 June at Clearstone, he holds a snap election that splits Canada into four autonomous regions led by Bellavance, Duffy, Famularo and White, each paired with a Korean and a Japanese advisor — the introduction of Oriental leadership to Canada. Two years later Mrs Moon proclaims the Completed Testament Age from the Canadian Parliament Buildings.

5 – 10 June 1991

True Father's seventh visit · five days fishing Lake Ontario

Notified just past midnight on 4 June, the Canadian members welcome Rev. and Mrs Moon, their son Kook Jin, three of Rev. Moon's cousins and his staff (Peter Kim, Mike McDevitt, Ki Byung Yoon, Erwin Wackna) to Clearstone Lodge on the evening of 5 June. For five days Rev. Moon fishes for salmon and trout from dawn until sunset off the shore near Cobourg. On 7 June Robert Duffy, Mike Templeman and Franco Famularo are on the boat — Famularo writes that Rev. Moon speaks for up to five hours covering God, the sacrificial life of faith, fish farms, and his prediction that more would change in the world during the 1990s than since the Second World War. Rev. Moon asks both Duffy and Famularo to attend the Unification Theological Seminary.

Source →
14 June 1991

Mother's ceremony · the Eve-nation pledge at Clearstone

Rev. and Mrs Moon return to Clearstone at 3:15 a.m. on 14 June, accompanied this time by the wives of four senior Japanese leaders — Tetsuko Kuboki, Noriko Oyamada, Kyoko Furuta and Setsuko Sakurai (with husband Setsuo). Shortly after 7:00 a.m., Rev. Moon holds a special ceremony asking Mrs Moon to pledge in Japanese, before the four Japanese witnesses, that she will continue his messianic mission after his ascension. He explains: "Since Canada is an extension of England, which was the original Eve nation, this ceremony is being held here." Mrs Moon's public speaking tour begins in September.

Source →
18 June 1991

Four regions established · Canada split at Clearstone

Twenty-three years to the day after the first Toronto centre opened on 18 June 1968, Rev. Moon sits with about forty members on the lawn at Clearstone and asks each husband to praise his wife. He then announces that Canada will be split into four autonomous regions, with no national headquarters — True Parents themselves will be the central headquarters. Members vote four names each onto a slip of paper. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax become the regional centres; Rev. Moon assigns the elected leaders — John Bellavance, Robert Duffy, Franco Famularo and Douglas White — to the four cities by a Korean draw method. Helene Dumont, who scored fourth in the vote, is made national itinerary worker. Four Korean men (Chang, Eum, Yoon, Lee) and the four Japanese women each form a trio with the Canadian regional leader — the first time Oriental leadership is introduced into the Canadian movement.

Source →
20 August 1991

Charitable status restored · retroactive to 1991

Six years after the discovery in July 1985 that the Letters Patent of HSA-UWC had been cancelled in September 1982 over an unfiled change of address (when the headquarters moved from 80 Admiral Road to 87 Bellevue Avenue in 1979), and after an exhaustive Revenue Canada audit by Mike Brosgall beginning August 1987 that examined every aspect of the church's teachings, organisation, membership and finances, charitable status is finally granted on 20 August 1991 retroactive to the beginning of the 1991 fiscal year. The audit had concluded that members live spartan lives — "food shelter, clothing, personal hygiene items... an accountable allowance of $30 per week" — and that there was no "fund-raising–benefit received" relationship.

Source →
25 August 1992

Blessing of 30,000 Couples

About forty members of the Canadian Unification Church participate in the Blessing of 30,000 Couples officiated by Rev. and Mrs Moon. By this point Canada has shifted decisively from a movement of single members into a movement of married couples with children — by 1991 there were almost one hundred children of Canadian Unification members.

Source →
8 November 1993

Mrs Moon proclaims the Completed Testament Age · Canadian Parliament

In the Railroad Committee Room of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, Mrs Moon addresses an overflow audience of over 350 dignitaries, parliamentarians and guests as part of her world-wide tour proclaiming "True Parents and the Completed Testament Age" in more than forty countries. Former Governor General Dr Edward Schreyer introduces her. Five members of parliament, fifteen ambassadors, and several community leaders attend; proclamations and letters of support arrive from Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, former Prime Minister Kim Campbell, most provincial premiers and most major-city mayors. Robert Duffy moderates; Petro Bilaniuk gives the invocation. Mrs Moon announces: "As True Parents, we are ushering in the Completed Testament Age... It is my great privilege to announce to you the establishment of the first completed True Family."

Source →

Sources

Every event on this page is drawn from Franco Famularo's A History of the Unification Church in Canada, 1965–1991 (revised 1994), a 283-page primary-source history compiled from member diaries, internal church reports, the New Age Frontiers and Way of the World newsletters, Canadian press cuttings, Revenue Canada audit documents, and interviews conducted between 1985 and 1994 with the founding generation. The book is archived at tparents.org.

← Providential History (global view)Compare with another country →