For more information December 30, 1999 Contact: Janet Weiland Phone: (323) 960-3500 Fax: (323) 960-3508 publicrelations@scientology.net Click here for press-ready photographs
Press Release
SCIENTOLOGY LEADS THE WORLD IN RINGING IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM
More Than 14,000 Attend 3 Hour Multi-Media Event Videoed and Simultaneously Translated in 13 Languages
Scientologists from around the world will ring in the millennium with a special New Year's Eve concert by soul legend Isaac Hayes and his band, as well as the Dukes of Soul on L. Ron Hubbard Way, Los Angeles. This is part of a week-long series of New Year events which started on Tuesday and will conclude on Sunday with a special Church of Scientology Sunday Service, also at the Church on L. Ron Hubbard Way. At the kick-off event on Tuesday, representatives from 65 nations, from France, Germany and Britain to China, Latvia, Fiji, India, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Macedonia and Israel, came to Los Angeles to participate in the Church of Scientology's New Year's 2000 celebration. The opening event at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, attended by more than 14,000 Scientologists, was simultaneously video taped in 13 languages for delegates to courier back to their homelands for New Years eve celebrations. Highlighted by a dazzling laser light show, the three hour multi-media event opened with a procession of more than 700 people wearing national costumes and bearing flags and banners representing more than twenty-three hundred Scientology churches, missions and groups worldwide. The ceremony — a retrospect of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's discoveries on the human spirit and the Church of Scientology's unprecedented growth and impact on the world — was the first of a five-day series of events for Scientologists, honoring the religion's first 50 years of accomplishment and affirming the triumph of spirituality over materialism. Joining the parishioners from around the world were leaders in religion, human rights, education, social justice and government. Others unable to attend sent their best wishes, including a United Nations representative, a consultant to the Vatican and a former economic advisor to the President. Among those sending congratulations on a half-century of spiritual leadership and commitment to social advance were Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, California Governor Gray Davis, California State Senator Raymond Haynes, California State Senator Richard Polanco, U.S. Congressmen Ben Gilman and Xavier Becerra, Canadian Member of Parliament Derek Lee, South African Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Ben Ngubane, Italian Minister of Public Education, Roberto Gagliardi and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Also attending were well-known artists and entertainers, including Isaac Hayes, hip hop superstar Doug E. Fresh and actresses Juliette Lewis and Anne Archer. "We are dedicated to creating a golden age for mankind in this new millennium," said Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch, President of the Church of Scientology International. "Throughout the last half of this century, L. Ron Hubbard forged a technology which puts total spiritual freedom within everyone's grasp. With this celebration, we usher in a new era where people of all colors and creeds can achieve that ages-old dream, and a world at peace in which honesty, decency and trust form the common bond of all mankind." Today, Mr. Hubbard's legacy is carried forward by more than 8 million Scientologists in 133 countries. With 24 million words of Dianetics and Scientology in print across all continents, Mr. Hubbard's discoveries on the mind and spirit form the foundation of the Scientology religion. These writings have given mankind an attainable route to peace, prosperity and spiritual freedom, distinguishing L. Ron Hubbard as the most influential writer and philosopher of the 20th Century. Click here for press-ready photographs
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