The parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann were welcomed with a wave of compassion yesterday at the church of Praia Da Luz.

The parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann were welcomed with a wave of compassion yesterday at the church of Praia Da Luz.

It was Mothering Sunday in Portugal and parishioners queued after Mass to offer their support to Kate McCann and her husband Gerry.

The couple have been through 60 hours of torment since Madeleine disappeared from their holiday apartment on Thursday night.

A line of elderly ladies were the first to make their way to the McCanns, hugging and kissing them, and before long there was a group of around 30 people, including children, crowded around the family, many in tears, awaiting their turn to hug and kiss them in an outpouring of support.

Earlier, the couple had arrived accompanied by Madeleine's grandparents, uncles and aunts, who had flown out from Britain to be with them.

Mrs McCann clutched a small, pink cuddly toy resembling a kitten which she has carried every time she has appeared in public since her daughter's disappearance.

She knelt silently for almost 10 minutes, praying and kissing the cuddly toy.

As local children presented flowers to their mothers, 14-year-old church acolyte Emily Seromenho, whose own mother is English, quietly walked forward to hand a visibly-moved Mrs McCann a bunch of five roses.

The women then lined up to lay their flowers at the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary and Mrs McCann joined them, walking to the front of the church. As she laid the roses - two red, three pink - at the foot of the statue she paused, silently gazing up at the image.

Special prayers were said for Madeleine and her family in Portuguese and English as part of the service. Up to 200 villagers packed the tiny 16th- century church.

Among those in the congregation was the British ambassador to Portugal John Buck. In halting English, Father Jose Manuel Pacheco said: "We are here like all Sundays and today we have a very big intention, we want to be with this family, the family of Madeleine.

"We are with the family, the parish, since the first moment of the event."

Afterwards Mrs McCann bravely stood to address reporters, breaking down with emotion. She said: "Gerry and I would just like to express our sincere gratitude and thanks to everybody, but particularly the local community here who have offered so much support.

"We couldn't have asked for more. Please continue to pray for Madeleine."

Her husband told how the family still had hope. The three-year-old went missing from the family's holiday apartment where she was sleeping with her younger brother and sister, twins Amelie and Sean, while their parents had dinner nearby on Thursday night.

"From today's service the thing that we are going to take away is strength and courage and hope, and we continue to hope for the best outcome from this for us and for Madeleine," he said.

Last night a group of 21 villagers, including a handful of children, met the McCanns in their apartment to say the Rosary together.

A spokesman for Mark Warner Holidays, which operates the Ocean Bay Club resort where the McCanns have been staying, said that the company had flown over two specialist counsellors who had been spending time with the couple - helping them work through the traumatic past few days.

He added: "Obviously they have got their children with them and they are looking after them.

"They have got a lot of support from relatives and they are finding comfort from that."

Hundreds of villagers and holidaymakers have joined police in searching the area around the resort.

Dave Shelton, a Manchester man now resident in the village who has been co-ordinating volunteer searchers, said that he had spent the day with a small group of around 20 people searching forest areas behind the beach.

On Friday there were as many as 500 volunteers, but Mr Shelton said that organisers had been collecting contact numbers from people who had arrived at the resort offering to help and allocating them to areas.

Mr Shelton said that he was hopeful there would be larger numbers to come, adding that other official searches were going on elsewhere with the Portuguese police widening the area they were looking in constantly.

Madeleine's parents are both doctors and the family live in Rothley, Leicestershire.

Glaswegian Gerry McCann, a cardiologist in Leicester, graduated from Glasgow University, where he was an accomplished athlete and Scottish universities 800 metre champion.

Kate is from Rothley but graduated from Dundee University and the couple met at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow where Gerry was training as a cardiologist and she was in anaesthetics prior to becoming a GP.

Friends and relatives of the couple yesterday defended them against criticism appearing on web logs and other sources.

The criticism - some of it quite merciless - has been aimed at the parents, pointing accusations at them for having left their children sleeping while they went for dinner a short distance from their holiday apartment.

A close friend in Glasgow yesterday described them as "incredibly nice people".

He added: "Gerry is an affable, free-spirited Glaswegian and Celtic fan. They are extremely responsible and loving parents.

"They don't need anyone to tell them they shouldn't have left the kids alone.

"It is easy to cast the first stone, but what parent hasn't done something like that? They could have just as easily been out in the garden of their own house."

Madeleine's aunt, Philomena McCann, said the criticism was not "at all" helpful.

She added: "It would be nice to think we all had blameless lives.

"Criticism of my brother and my heartbroken sister-in-law is not at all helpful."