Crystal Cathedral Spared From Spraying : Medfly: Because of a meeting of 2,700 ministers at the Orange County church, state agriculture officials agreed to avoid dousing it with malathion.

In the only exemption allowed in the Mediterranean fruit fly spraying program so far, state agriculture officials last month spared the Crystal Cathedral and 2,700 ministers attending a conference at the Garden Grove church from a dousing of malathion.

Helicopter pilots spraying a 36-square-mile area on Jan. 25 were ordered by state officials not to spray the cathedral, officials said Friday.

Two weeks earlier, a Medfly had been found less than two miles from the church, whose buildings are surrounded by flower gardens, trees and shrubs.

Dr. Chester Tolson of the Crystal Cathedral said the spraying was scheduled during a four-day conference of the Institute for Successful Church Leadership. Ministers from churches throughout the country attended the conference.

During the evening of the spraying, part of the conference group dined in a tent outside the main cathedral.

Tolson said a church official had contacted agricultural officials earlier and told them of the planned events on Jan. 25. “There was no political pressure that we exerted,” Tolson said. The Rev. Robert Schuller, pastor of the cathedral, was traveling in the Soviet Union and unavailable for comment.

Tolson said that until Friday, he did not know whether the church grounds had been sprayed. Tolson said he thought the helicopters had flown over the church grounds at 11 p.m. and that the pilots, seeing that lights were still on in the cathedral, decided not to spray.

State officials said it would have been a disservice to spray the cathedral grounds while a conference was under way with a dinner outside.

“It was a matter of common sense and politeness with all those numbers of people there not to spray,” said Rex Magee, associate director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

“We would not have sprayed a football stadium filled with people,” Magee said. “It is a matter of consideration not to spray people with that sticky bait stuff. They would have gotten the sticky stuff all over their fancy clothes.”

Barbara Brown, an executive assistant to Orange County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, a staunch opponent of malathion spraying, said the fact that state officials allowed the exemption showed they felt that the pesticide posed a health hazard.

Added Brown: “We heard that others who plan to have dinner parties are going to request exemptions.”