True Father Released from Pyongyang Jail in North Korea

True Father undertook mission work in North Korea beginning in June 1946. Some two months later, on August 11, 1946, he was arrested by police in Taedong, a district of Pyongyang. In jail, he met members of the “Inside-Belly” Church whose leader also had been arrested. That church had been preparing clothes and food for the Lord’s Second Coming. On September 18, 1946, True Father passed a message to its leader, Mrs. Hyo Bin Heo, which stated. “The writer of this note has a mission from heaven. Pray to find out who he is. … “ The note was discovered and True Father was subjected to severe torture which included sleep deprivation and savage beatings.

On November 21, a Soviet interrogator determined that True Father was not a spy from the South, and authorities notified followers that they should come and get him. According to one account, True Father was thrown out into the yard, half dead from the beatings, his clothes stuck to his body by clotted blood. He vomited blood, and those helping him thought he might die. However, after three weeks he began to improve. True Father wrote in his autobiography, “Once I recovered, I resumed my evangelical work.” Mrs. Hyo Bin Heo perished in prison.