Don’t let that Non-Enturbulation Order hit you on the way out. Russia tells the Church of Scientology they're a trademark - not a religion

And Russia’s downward spiral continues unabated.

In a hilariously constitutional ruling, the Moscow City Court ruled recently that the Church of Scientology International, headquartered in the United States, does not qualify for religious protection under Russian law because the church is a registered trademark in the U.S., thus precluding it from religious protection. BOOM.

The Kool-Aid is strong with this one

Oh yeah, and the Moscow Scientologists may have been spying on people.

This is not the first clash Scientology has had with Russian courts. St. Petersburg shut down an auditing center in 2007 for operating a health care service without proper licensing. That same year, Scientology took Russia to court over its refusal to allow Scientology to re-register as a religious entity, The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had to allow Scientology to operate within the country.

However, Scientology has been having a bit of a rough go lately in domestic European courts. Prosecutors in Belgium have hit the Church of Scientology with a litany of criminal charges. They were convicted of fraud in France in 2009 and the ruling was upheld in 2013. CSI is also having a legal battle in the Netherlands, where a Dutch court just revoked its tax-exempt status.

Given that Russians are generally a little more willing to call a spade a spade than are their Western neighbors, the Moscow city court has taken this European revolt against Scientology a step further, and handed down a ruling basically stating that you can’t plaster trademarks and copyrights all over yourself and still expect to call yourself a religion.

Because really. Talk about falling on their own sword. Threats over copyright violations and trademark lawsuits are, like, Scientology’s favorite, favorite, most bestest thing.

Like when they threatened the American cable company HBO with a lawsuit for airing a Scientology documentary and claimed copyright infringement.

Or like in 2013, when they demanded that the search engine GoDaddy.com take down a parody site that mocked Scientology, on the grounds that because CSI logos and a photograph of leader David Miscavige appeared on the site, they were in breach of copyright and trademark rights.

Or the time their lawyers sent a letter to Gawker claiming criminal copyright infringement because of a Scientology video they posted.

Or the time way back in 1995, when a Scientology critic’s house was raided because he had allegedly violated Scientology’s copyright.

That’s not even to mention the time they went all NSA on South Park and instigated a full-fledged investigation against the cartoon's creators because they aired an episode that poked fun at Scientology and Lord Xenu himself, Tom Cruise.

Grandstanding about their copyrights, trademarks, and secret proprietary blend of herbs and spices is precisely what the Church of Scientology does to silence and harass its critics. By telling them that they are not, in fact, entitled to religious protection because of the very copyrights and trademarks they are always squawking about, the city of Moscow has done us all a good turn.

Their ruling is so on point that I am kind of hoping that the Moscow court was trolling them. Stories of Scientology’s victims litter the internet, and as it’s possible CSI found fertile ground in the self-improvement trend popular among younger Russians (Scientology advertises itself as a spiritual path to enlightenment and well-being). I guess we’ll have to leave it to the fearless crusaders at The Daily Beast to find fault in this ruling.

The Church of Scientology can, of course appeal Moscow’s ruling, because they apparently have unlimited funds to waste on court cases. Nobody knows how much money they really have squirreled away because they game freedom of religion protections in the United States and remain tax-exempt.

According to RT, representatives for Scientology are “arguing that even Koran is protected by a copyright” thus accusing the Russians of a double standard, because... Why hello, that’s quite a big mosque you’ve got there, Mr. Putin. It is for copyright lawyers and legal experts to suss out the whys and wherefores, but it’s more than likely that Scientology’s argument is not going to hold up.

While individual translations of religious books like the Koran and the Bible may indeed be subject to copyright by their various publishers, religious books are public domain. So if Scientology wants to argue that religious books are still under copyright by their original creators, I guess this also means their inevitable appeal may lead to courtroom arguments about whether or not God is dead. So stay tuned.

The Thetans have about six months to audit themselves out of the city.

Good people of Moscow, have no fear! Join my cult instead! Free gelato every Friday!