The Government Press Office (GPO) announced Monday that thousands of Christians are due to attend a multicultural 
His controversial claims and behaviors have led to his church being ousted from Korean church organizations.
festival and prayer rally in the Israel Convention Center in Jerusalem (Binyanei HaUma) next week. While the GPO praises the event, which will be attended by the mayor of Jerusalem and the Minister of Tourism, anti-missionary activists note that it will be led by a pastor whom even other Christian groups label a "cult leader".
The Binyanei HaUma building will accommodate more than 3,000 Christians attending the event from 36 different countries this coming Sunday night. According to the GPO, the festival will include Far East dance troupes and choirs, followed by "a special prayer for the health and for the blessing of Israel and her people."
The GPO said that this will be the first time in nine years that Jerusalem hosts an international convention of this proportion. The Ministry of Tourism and the Municipality of Jerusalem "attach great importance to the event and to the visit of thousands of pilgrims to the capital."
Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat will both be attending the gathering, to be broadcast live to millions of viewers worldwide. The festival and prayer service will be led by Dr. Jaerock Lee, senior pastor of the Manmin Joong-ang Church in Seoul, South Korea.
Although leading the large, international event in Jerusalem, Dr. Lee is considered by many within mainstream Christian organizations to be a cult leader. His controversial claims and behaviors have led to his church being ousted from Korean church organizations and to denouncement by many Korean-American pastors. However, Lee's Manmin Church claims over 8,000 branches in Korea and abroad.
Ellen Horowitz of Jewish Israel, an Israeli grassroots countermissionary organization, believes that the Manmin-led event is connected with the launching of a Russian-language missionary television station in Israel, TBN. Lee's sermons are televised on TBN in Russia, according to Horowitz, and the president of TBN boasted that they would be celebrating with Mayor Barkat, Knesset members and other dignitaries from September 3-10, 2009.
Lee, who already visited Israel in June in preparation for the event and met, amongst others, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, announced that his choice to hold the convention in Jerusalem is an expression of solidarity with the Jewish people, the State of Israel and its leaders. Participants in the Jerusalem event will also take part in a mass Jewish National Fund tree-planting in the Yad Kennedy forest, visit Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, and pay their respects to holy sites around the country. Lee also claimed, according to a GPO press release, that his organization has assisted new immigrants to Israel and will continue to do so in the future.
Aside from the religious aspect of the trip and gathering, Lee expressed his wish to strengthen cultural ties between Israel and South Korea. He is planning to invite Israeli cultural and spiritual leaders to Korea, as well.
The Manmin Church runs its own TV station, directed by Johnny Kim, which will be producing the Jerusalem event. Jewish Israel's Horowitz noted that Kim is "heavily into pyrotechnics and laser shows," and quipped that she hopes "Jerusalem doesn't get a giant cross in the sky over the Old City - compliments of our 'best friends'."