Manila, Philippines - Church bells rang out across Asia as millions of Christians celebrated Easter, ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's first address to the world's Catholics on the day commemorating Christ's resurrection.
The faithful packed churches from the Philippines -- the largest Christian nation in Asia -- to communist Vietnam and China, where some worshippers prayed in hiding for fear of official persecution.
In strictly Muslim Afghanistan, gripped last month by furore over the case of Abdul Rahman who faced the death penalty under Afghan law for converting to Christianity, pockets of underground Afghan Christians held highly secretive gatherings Sunday.
The small numbers of Afghan Christians live in fear of authorities -- who under Islamic Sharia law could face the death penalty -- although this has never happened in this country, according to public knowledge.
The celebrations in Asia came ahead of Benedict's much anticipated message from the balcony at Saint Peter's basilica in Vatican City -- nearly one year to the day since he was elected pontiff following the death of John Paul II.
In the Philippines, many marked the most important event on the Christian calendar with a traditional pre-dawn reenactment of Mary Magdalene's meeting with the newly risen Christ.
The country's senior church leader, Manila archbishop Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, said in a message read out at masses nationwide that the Philippines should follow the example of Christ to rise above months of political crisis.
At the weekend, Philippines President Gloria Arroyo announced a moratorium on executions, commuting all death sentences to life imprisonment in an apparent concession to the country's powerful Roman Catholic Church.
In China, all officially sanctioned Christian churches were to hold Easter services, according to Pastor Wang Di at the protestant Chongwenmen Church in Beijing.
However, for those Chinese worshipping in "underground" or unregistered house churches, Easter services would be conducted behind locked doors.
"As we are unregistered, the congregation has to meet secretly, but this is the case every week, not just because it is Easter," Hua Huiqi, member of an underground Beijing church, said by phone.
Last Christmas, police raided house churches in China, arresting church leaders and confiscating bibles.
Thousands of Catholics flocked to churches in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, starting with a midnight mass at the neo-Gothic St Joseph's Cathedral, built during the time of French colonial rule.
Vietnam has Southeast Asia's largest Catholic community after the Philippines, with some six million followers, or seven percent of the population. Restrictions on the community have eased in recent years.
In India, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in southern Kerala state, where Christians make up 23 percent of the population, prayed at the Saint Thomas Church in Malayattoor, many carrying the cross on their backs.
The Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa in India's eastern city of Kolkata held a special mass.
Meanwhile, police arrested two women in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on Easter Sunday for allegedly violating state laws on promoting religious conversion by preaching Christianity.
Christians make up just about two percent of India's 1.1 billion population, but have been criticised for aggressively recruiting converts among the country's majority Hindu population.
In Australia, the head of the Anglican Church said in his Easter message that modern society had distorted the true meaning of Christ's resurrection.
"Instead of it being about the re-creation of the earth and human society being put to rights, we've turned it into another worldly concern to do with going to heaven when you die," said Primate Phillip Aspinall, archbishop of Brisbane.
At the Vatican, Benedict was to voice concerns over Iran's nuclear program in his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" address, urging the international community to negotiate with Tehran, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
ANSA said the pope, who turned 79 on Sunday, would also defend Israel's right to live in peace, call for additional aid to the Palestinians and express hope for an end to political stalemate in Italy following general elections there.
Cardinals elected Benedict as the new pontiff on April 19 last year, following John Paul II's death on April 2.