Scientology status by country

Scientology status by country describes the status of Scientology and its recognition as a religion or otherwise in different countries. The Church of Scientology pursues an extensive public relations campaign for state recognition of Scientology as a religion and cites numerous scholarly sources supporting its position. The level of recognition Scientology has been able to obtain varies significantly from country to country.

The Church of Scientology has been recognized as a religious denomination in its home country, the United States, and has received full recognition in various other countries such as Italy,South Africa,Australia,Sweden,New Zealand,Portugal and Spain; it thus enjoys and regularly cites the constitutional protection afforded in these nations to religious practice. Some countries, mostly in Europe, have regarded Scientology as a potentially dangerous cult, or at least have not considered local branches of the Church of Scientology to meet the legal criteria for being considered religion-supporting organizations, seeing Scientology as a business.

The 2014 ruling in London, which had five judges in the UK Supreme Court unanimously rule that a Scientology chapel is a “place of meeting for religious worship,” solidified the church’s status as a religion in the region. While some theologians critically approach Scientology’s status as a religion, social scientists as a whole agree that it “satisfies the abstract criteria for recognition as a religion.”

According to the U.S. Department of State, Scientologists, who are mostly located in the Athens area, practice their faith through a registered non-profit civil-law organization. Two laws from the 1930s require recognized or "known" religious groups wanting to open houses of worship to obtain "house of prayer" permits from the Ministry of Education and Religion. There is no formal mechanism in Greece to gain recognition as a known religion. By law, the Ministry may base its decision to issue permits on the opinion of the local Orthodox bishop; documentation provided to the Department of State by Scientology representatives and the Greek Orthodox Church indicated the Ministry did indeed consult with local bishops in some cases. According to Ministry officials, applications for additional houses of prayer were numerous and approved routinely; however, Scientologists in Greece had not been able to register or build a house of prayer.

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