All three women were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, but the charge was trumped up by the Russian government because it was really aimed at the Russian president Vladimir Putin. The group's impromptu performance inside Moscow's main cathedral in February was political in nature and not an attack on religion.
The case has been condemned in the USA and Europe, where it has been seen as an illustration of Putin's intensifying crackdown on dissent after his return to the presidency after four years as prime minister.
The Moscow City Court ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich's sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of the cathedral by guards before she could remove her guitar from its case and take part in the performance.
"The punishment for an incomplete crime is much lighter than for a completed one," said Samutsevich's lawyer, Irina Khrunova. "She did not participate in the actions the court found constituted hooliganism."
Dressed in neon-coloured miniskirts and tights, with homemade balaclavas on their heads, the women performed a "punk prayer" asking Virgin Mary to save Russia from Putin as he headed into a March election that would hand him a third term.
"The idea of the protest was political, not religious," she said. "In this and in previous protests we acted against the current government of the president."
Rights groups were frustrated by the appeals court decision.
"To see these two women sent to a Russian penal colony for the crime of singing a song undercuts any claim that Putin and the Russian government have to democracy and freedom of expression," Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
Tolokonnikova appealed to Russians for understanding:
"I don't consider myself guilty. But again I ask all those who are listening to me for the last time: I don't want people to be angry at me: Yes, I'm going to prison, but I don't want anyone to think that there is any hatred in me."
The court also refused the defence lawyers' request to take into consideration that Tolokonnikova and Alekhina both have a young child.
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