Années Pionnières en Europe

The European Unification Movement began when missionaries, most of them of a European background, were sent from the United States where they had encountered the fledgling Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity - first to Germany in 1963 and '64, to the Netherlands and United Kingdom in 1965, and to Italy in 1966. 

Peter Koch and his sister Barbara, Ursula Schuhmann, Paul Werner and his wife Christel, Elke Klawitter and a little later, Teddie Verheyen, Sandy Pinkerton and Doris Walder all came to Europe as pioneers of their new-found faith. They had all met the Movement on the West Coast of America through the theologian, Dr. Young Oon Kim, one of the first Korean missionaries of the Unification Movement to the western world. 

It was Dr. Yoon Oon Kim who served as an important bridge between cultures, translating the first version of The Divine Principle from Korean into English. Many young Americans and Europeans in San Francisco were spiritually guided to meet her and encountered the truth of Divine Principle under her loving guidance.

The first branch of the Holy Spirit Association in Europe was formally founded on the 11th December, 1964, in Frankfurt, Germany. Soon the humble apartments in Frankfurt and Essen were unable to provide space enough to house the steadily growing number of new members. In 1965, centres opened in other German cities, Paul and Christel Werner began the mission work in Austria, in 1966 Reiner Vincenz went to France and Ursula Schuhmann went to Spain. Within the next five years, True Parents were in a position to dispatch missionaries to pioneer or support mission work in ten other European countries; and even in other continents.

Father visited Europe for the first time during his world tour in 1965.  He toured Europe for about forty days from the first city they visited, Lisbon in Portugal, to the Vatican, and established nineteen holy grounds in sixteen nations.  "The Vatican is the concentrated hub of European civilization, the place where the essence of European civilization accumulated. Just as you intend, Heavenly Father, we will bring the innumerably divided religious denominations and orders into oneness. So Heavenly Father, please be with us." The devotion with which Father offered his heartfelt prayer at the holy ground in the Vatican, has continued to this day. True Parents have visited Europe more than twenty times and have guided the mission work with deep blessings and grace. 

Europe at this time, of course, was cruelly divided between the Communist East and the Democratic West. When new members began flooding into the Movement in Western European countries, True Parents' heart turned to the suffering peoples of Eastern Europe. True Father had fearlessly declared Communism to one of God's major headaches, but what could be done to overcome such a tyranny, holding hundreds of millions of people captive in the chains of fear and control?

Already, in 1968, the first underground missionary, a sister, Emilia Steberl, with the support of Paul and Christel Werner had slipped into what was then Czechoslovakia. After several years of investment by Emilia - despite constant danger - a group of almost one hundred enthusiastic, Czechoslovakian followers had formed. In 1973, thirty were arrested by the regime. They were accused of "subversion of the republic" and sentenced to prison terms of between one and four years. One sister - Maria Zivna - died in prison, the first martyr to die while conducting missionary work in a Communist country, and in the following year another person lost his life in prison.