Former Unification Church Files Special Appeal to Supreme Court to Overturn Dissolution Ruling

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:43 JST, March 9, 2026

Family Federation for World Peace and Unification — formerly known as the Unification Church — filed a special appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the Tokyo High Court’s decision to uphold a lower court ruling that ordered the dissolution of the religious group, the church announced Monday.

With the Wednesday ruling handed down by the Tokyo High Court, the order has become effective and consequently losing the church its status as a religious corporation, prompting its officials to resign. A liquidator selected by the court has launched procedures to liquidate its assets in order to compensate victims, whose assets were systematically and illegally solicited as donations to the church.

If the Supreme Court revokes the dissolution order, the liquidation procedures will also halted.

The Religious Corporations Law stipulates that a court can order a religious corporation to dissolve if it finds that “in violation of laws and regulations, the religious corporation commits an act which is clearly found to substantially harm public welfare.”

In October 2023, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry submitted a request for an order to dissolve the church. There are two prior examples of Japanese religious groups being ordered to dissolve. The Unification Church ruling represents the first time that a dissolution order has been issued for a religious corporation for breaches of the Civil Code.

The high court’s ruling confirmed that the church had inflicted a total of ¥7.4 billion damages to at least 506 people between 1973 and 2016. The high court upheld the Tokyo District Court’s order in March last year to dissolve the church.