ASAN, South Korea (AP):

Nearly a half-century after the Reverend Sun Myung Moon performed his first mass wedding, the 89-year-old leader of the Unification Church is getting ready to marry off tens of thousands of people in spectacles from the United States to South Korea.

The church says Moon will wed or reaffirm the marriages of more than 40,000 people. More than 20,000 will participate today at Sun Moon University in Asan, south of Seoul, in a ceremony that will be broadcast live at similar events worldwide.

Leadership change

One of the largest "blessing ceremonies" took place at the Unification Church-owned New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan last night, church officials said.

The mass weddings, the church's largest in a decade, come as Moon is moving to hand day-to-day leadership over to three of his 11 children. The three sons insist their father remains in charge and in good health. Church officials say the massive global ceremony is meant to mark two key anniversaries in the leader's life, his 90th birthday and his 50th wedding anniversary.