Chinese police detained dozens of Christians who were trying to converge at the site of a banned Easter service in Beijing.
While Easter services for tens of millions of Christians across China mostly went ahead unhindered, police led away people trying to gather in northwest Beijing.
The Shouwang Church had called for outdoor services after it was evicted from its rented premises during a clampdown on dissent.
Leaders of the Shouwang Church have said they have no political agenda and want only to find a permanent place to worship for its 1,000 or so members, who refuse to accept official demands that churches come under the direct oversight of Communist Party authorities.
The contention over religious rights that began early this month continued when police officers shunted dozens of people, many of them young adults, onto buses as they turned up near the walkway where the church had said it would pray on Sundays.
A dozen or so people herded onto one bus appeared to be singing hymns.
Police and plain clothes guards patrolling the area in Beijing's Zhongguancun district prevented reporters from approaching the detainees, who mostly did not appear to resist detention.
In past years, the Chinese government has relaxed some restrictions on 'house' churches that refuse party oversight.
Many members of these churches are watching the Shouwang dispute to see if it marks a fresh tightening, said Wang Yi, a leader of one such church in southwest China.
The church dispute has come while the Chinese government seeks to ward off any attempts by would-be protesters to take up calls for a 'Jasmine Revolution' inspired by anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world.
Estimates of how many Chinese people are Christian vary widely, especially because many of them are members of Protestant or Catholic congregations that shun Party oversight.
Surveys in recent years have concluded that, in all, there could be about 40 million Protestants and 14 million Catholics.
The Catholic church in China is divided between a government-recognised side that curtails the Pope's authority to ordain bishops and manage church affairs, and an 'underground' side that refuses to accept government controls.
Pope Benedict has been encouraging reconciliation between the two sides of the Chinese church and exploring establishing formal ties with Beijing.
