Hundreds of Coptic Christians on Sunday demonstrated outside the state television building in central Cairo, in protest at the destruction of a church in the southern Egyptian province of Aswan, DPA reported.
During the protest, led by several bishops, the demonstrators burnt photos of the governor of Aswan, Mustafa al-Sayed, who had said that the church in the village of Marinap had been built illegally.
The protesters demanded the governor be sacked and the church rebuilt.
Christians account for around 10 per cent of Egypt's 80-million-strong population. Tensions are not uncommon between them and the country's majority Muslims.
In March, 13 people were killed in sectarian clashes around the Cairo neighbourhood of Manshiyet Nasser, shortly after a church was torched in the village of Sol, south of the capital.