Representatives from a controversial Middle East-based religious organization failed to show up Wednesday for a tax appeal hearing on a former Lansford church the group bought about a year ago.

The Orthodox Center for Religious Studies, with addresses in Orange, Calif., and Cairo, Egypt, will have to schedule another hearing if it wants to pursue tax-exempt status for the former English Congregational Church at 47 W. Ridge St., said Carbon County Assessment Appeals Board solicitor Daniel Miscavige.The group's head, Bishop Zakaria Botros, has drawn the fury of Islamic leaders for his outspoken evangelization of Muslims in Egypt to convert to Christianity. Botros is a Coptic Christian, the oldest Christian community in the Middle East. According to a broad array of news reports, Botros claims untold numbers of conversions through his television broadcasts, which are delivered in Arabic.Botros bought the three-story, 10,000-square-foot church from George and Gala Properties, Meadville, Missouri, for $41,000 on July 31, 2009, according to the Carbon County Recorder of Deeds and the county assessment office. Several weeks earlier, on June 18, 2009, George W. Duncan, also of Meadville, and a principal in George and Gala Properties, bought the church at an auction for $26,000.The former church is now assessed for tax purposes at $111,795 and a fair market value of $304,082, according to the appeals board.That means it would pay a total of $10,284 in 2010 property taxes: $6,225.86 to the Panther Valley School District; $3,287.89 to Lansford Borough and $714.71 to the county, according to the county tax assessment office.George and Gala Properties sold another property, in Beaver Falls, Beaver County, to Botros last year, and in January, 2009, Botros bought two properties in Youngstown, Ohio, according to a local news outlet.Dr. Ragaei Ayoub, who is vice-president of the Orthodox Center, wrote to the appeals board on Sept. 28, asking for the Lansford property to be made exempt from all property taxes because it is a "public charity." He attached a letter from the Internal Revenue Service, dated Oct. 16, 2006. That letter states that the IRS in April 1995 categorized the building as a public charity and therefore exempt from federal income taxes.The center has kept mum on its plans for the former church. Ayoub said in a telephone interview last August that the group bought the building to establish a Coptic church "for our congregants in that area." At the time, Ayoub did not know how many Coptic Christians live in Lansford.Botros, a lightning rod for Islamic anger, has been unavailable. According to a March 25 news report from the Assyrian International News Agency, about six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them prompted by Botros' public ministry.Also according to the news agency, Botros, 80, was named "Islam's 'Public Enemy #1' by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid.