Sun Myung Moon adherents try to get into Russian education system, historian of cults says

Interfax, Russia/July 3, 2007

Moon's adherents try 'to use new ways for getting into the Russian education system,' the president of the Russian Association for Study of Religions and Cults Alexander Dvorkin said.

'Moon's sect has always tried to win agents of influence in centers of power. The education institutions they especially favor. Winning more young minds for their leader, who gets older and older, is one of their characteristic strategies,' Dvorkin said in his statement published in Moscow on Tuesday.

According to him, during the two last years the Moonists try to reach heads of Russian educational institutions by awarding on them titles like 'Peace Ambassador' as 'they thought they would be welcomed to schools and universities in response.'

'But Russian society becomes increasingly wise so the Moonist leaders start feeling less confident in this country,' he said.

Meanwhile, Dvorkin said, the more schools and universities 'kick off' the cultists with their programs and courses, the more 'new trumps they try to play.'

According to Dvorkin, the Moonists happened to organize 'elimination matches of the Mr. & Ms. University 2007 international beauty and talents contest' in Moscow on May 25.

'They acted in full conformity with the cultist principle of confessional anonymity as they told no one that the contest was organized Moon's Unification Church,' he said.

However, Dvorkin added, an expert would easily recognize their hand in the contest terms.

For instance, one article of the terms says that the participants 'should not have any experience of cohabitation, marriage, pregnancy or abortion.'