In re Appeal of the Open Door Baptist Church

Opinion by

Judge MacPhail,

Open Door Baptist Church (Church), an independent fundamentalist congregation, in July of 1976 bought 10.879 acres of land in Lower Macungie Township, Lehigh County. The Church paid taxes on its real estate until September of 1978, at which time the entire tract was dedicated to the “Lord Jesus Christ.” The Church then appealed its real estate tax assessment to the Board of Assessment Appeals (Board) *294which, granted a partial exemption for the land actually used for church purposes. That decision was appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County which affirmed…