MOSCOW, May 5 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Supreme Court has dismissed a complaint the Moscow Church of Scientology had lodged in connection to the Russian Justice Ministry refusal to register this organization’s charter, a court representative told RAPSI on Thursday.

“The complaint was returned to the petitioner without examination,” – the court representative noted. It was clarified that Church representatives tried to challenge a Moscow Izmailovsky Court ruling, which had dismissed their complaint against the Justice Ministry decision.

In the course of a routine check of documents, the Russia’s Ministry of Justice has established that the charter of this faith-based organization was not in compliance with provisions of the federal law on freedom of religion, whereas the word “scientology” was registered as a trademark, whose owner is the US Religious Technology Center. In this connection, the Justice Ministry had first refused to register amendments to the charter, and later turned to the Moscow City Court requesting to dissolve the organization. The Moscow City Court has already banned the Moscow Church of Scientology and allowed it six months to complete the liquidation procedure. This ruling has been challenged in the Russia’s Supreme Court.  

Dianetics and Scientology are a set of religious and philosophical ideas and practices that were put forth by L. Ron Hubbard in the US in the early 1950s.

A resolution passed in 1996 by the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, classified the Church of Scientology as a destructive religious organization.

The Moscow Regional Court ruled in 2012 that some of Hubbard’s books be included on the Federal List of Extremist Literature and prohibited from distribution in Russia.