Interfax Russian News March 1, 1999, Monday RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OPPOSES SCIENTOLOGY - SPOKESMAN MOSCOW, March 1 (Interfax) The Russian Orthodox Church wants an "appropriate legal assessment of the unseemly acts" of the Russian Scientologist community, a Church spokesman said on Monday. On Thursday police searched the offices of four Scientologists in Moscow after the community was charged last week with conducting illegal business practices and the "organization of an association that encroaches on the privacy and rights of citizens." Father Vsevolod, spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, told Interfax that the Russian Orthodox Church considers the Scientologist Church a socially dangerous totalitarian sect that adversely affects people's personalities and their family and social relationships. "It is for precisely this reason that the Patriarchate can in no way cooperate or hold a dialogue with that organization," he said. Vsevolod said Scientologists have penetrated industry and local government, and are attempting to introduce their administrative practices which, he said, involve rigorous authority and informers. The spokesman said that a person who joins the Scientologist Church "falls into complete psychological dependence on the leaders of the sect." They maintain files on all new converts in which are recorded every important feature in their life, including their childhood impressions, psychological complexes and even their intimate sexual experiences, Vsevolod said. A Patriarchate expert said Danish authorities were also bringing legal action against Scientologists. The Scientology sect possesses "a tremendous amount of information on people that any security service would envy," the experts told Interfax. "At first sight, the Scientologists try to help their adherents to root out complexes and emotional experiences that are deeply embedded in their subconsciousness. "However, modern followers of[ Scientology founder] L. Ron Hubbard are clearly not professional psychiatrists, psychologists or psychoanalysts. They mix elements of those with occultism." The expert said psychiatrists in the United States, Scientology's country of origin, do not recommend that people with mental disorders go to the Scientologists for treatment.