MOSCOW, Russia (AP) — Russia's top Orthodox clerics yesterday asked for mercy for the punk band Pussy Riot for its anti-Government protest in a Moscow cathedral, but the church's forgiveness is unlikely to change the band's punishment in a case that caused an international furore over political dissent.

Despite its plea for clemency for the three rock activists, a leading cleric called the demonstration "awful" and defiant of the powerful church that is the heart of Russia's national identity.

The case, which ended Friday with the three band members' conviction for hooliganism and sentence to two years each in prison, became an emblem of Russia's intolerance of dissent and was widely seen as a warning that authorities will tolerate opposition only under tightly controlled conditions.

Tikhon Shevkunov, who is widely believed to be President Vladimir Putin's spiritual counsellor, said on state television yesterday that his church forgave the singers after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities," said the cleric, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery.

Archpriest Maxim Kozlov agreed, but he also said on state TV that his church hopes the young women and their supporters change their ways.

"We are simply praying and hoping that these young women and all these people shouting in front of the court building, committing sacrilegious acts not only in Russia but in other countries, realise that their acts are awful," he said. "And despite this the church is asking for mercy within the limits of law."

Both clerics supported the court's decision to prosecute Pussy Riot, despite an international outcry that incited global protests from Moscow to New York and condemnation from musicians like Madonna and Paul McCartney. Governments, including those in the United States, Britain, France and Germany, denounced the sentences as disproportionate.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were arrested in March after dancing and high-kicking in the cathedral as they called on the Virgin Mary to save Russia from Putin, who was elected to a third term as Russia's president two weeks later.

A Moscow court sentenced them Friday following a trial that was widely seen as Kremlin-orchestrated.

The conviction comes in the wake of several recently passed laws cracking down on opposition, including one that raised the fine for taking part in an unauthorised demonstration by 150 times to 300,000 rubles (about US$9,000). Another measure requires non-government organisations that both engage in vaguely defined political activity and receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents".

The Pussy Riot case has underlined the vast influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Although church and state are formally separate, critics say its strength and symbolism in the country effectively make it a quasi-state entity. Some Orthodox groups and many believers had urged strong punishment for an action they consider blasphemous.

The church has a history of cracking down on its critics in post-Soviet Russia: Gleb Yakunin, a priest and former lawmaker was defrocked and excommunicated after discovering in the early 1990s that church leaders had been enlisted as KGB agents.

The current head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has made no secret of his strong support for Putin, praising his leadership as "God's miracle", and has described the punk performance as part of an assault by "enemy forces" on the church.