David Miscavige shows up for Scientology 'Ideal Org' grand opening in South Africa

Proving that our doubts were unfounded, Scientology leader David Miscavige did indeed personally attend the grand opening of his newest “Ideal Org,” the Church of Scientology of Eastern Cape, in Gqeberha, South Africa (formerly Port Elizabeth).

We know this because a few people who attended the event yesterday posted photos to Facebook, including the picture you see above of Miscavige speaking to the small crowd.

Scientology itself hasn’t put out a press release quoting Dear Leader, so we don’t know what clever references to local culture or history that he threw into what is usually a pretty standard speech.

But we do have to say, the elephants behind him are a nice touch.

One attendee posted a few seconds of the pre-event entertainment…

Another showed the crowd approaching the tall building with its new signage…

And we’re most grateful to the Scientologist who managed to snap a shot of Miscavige during his speech. Here’s the larger version of the image so you can get a better look at those elephants…

What’s going on here? And why is Scientology opening so many new churches?

The “Ideal Org” program began in 2003 as Miscavige began replacing existing “orgs” (short for organizations, Scientology’s word for churches) and has opened 68 of them now in total. (This is actually the 69th grand opening, but an Ideal Org in Moscow was shut down.)

Last year, four Ideal Orgs were opened after a delay caused by the pandemic, in Austin, Mexico City (its second), Chicago, and Paris.

The Eastern Cape org is the first of 2025, and the fourth in South Africa (Pretoria, and two in Johannesburg).

Each Ideal Org represents tens of millions in expenses, according to former Scientology executive Paul Burkhart, and Miscavige promises his followers that if they fork over for his pet project, the new Ideal Orgs will spur massive growth of membership.

More than 20 years since the program began, however, there’s no evidence of that growth, and the Ideal Orgs tend to sit mostly empty after an initial busy period. Will the same be the fate of the Eastern Cape?

The reason we assumed that Miscavige wouldn’t personally show up for this event was that South African cities are high-crime areas, and Gqeberha is among the worst. Miscavige has skipped very few of the grand openings, but one that he did miss in the past was the one at Pretoria.

But he did show up, as the photo shows. We are still skeptical, however, that many new people will walk in the doors when the new org is located in such a high-crime area.

“Finally, another Ideal Org opening. After the non-event that was LRH's birthday, Miscavige must have been reeling to get Port Elizabeth open so that he has at least something to talk about at this year's IAS event,” says former London staffer Alex Barnes-Ross.

“I remember when there used to be multiple Ideal Org openings a year. I think at one point it was even almost one a month. Now they're struggling to open one a year? What does that say about the 'fastest growing religion on planet Earth?'

“And let's not forget. Scientologists fly from all over the world to attend these things. I’d put money on this building being a ghost town the moment Miscavige has gone. How many of these staff will actually fulfil their 2.5- and 5-year contracts?”

Alex pointed out that the org has posted the renderings of how nice everything is inside. It’s the usual set of auditing rooms and other amenities that are almost identical from one org to another.

However, we are always interested to see how one room has been customized for its location, and that’s the office for L. Ron Hubbard himself. The Commodore died in 1986, but all orgs are required to have an office ready for him in case he returns…

Pretty snazzy, right? Let us know what you think.

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