Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of female punk band Pussy Riot, is escorted by police as she arrives at a Moscow court on Monday.
By NBC News wire services
MOSCOW - Three young women who staged an irreverent punk-rock protest against Vladimir Putin on the altar of Russia's main cathedral were due to go on trial Monday in a case seen as a test of the president's tolerance of dissent.
The trial of the activists - from the band Pussy Riot - should show how much power the resurgent Russian Orthodox Church and its head, Patriarch Kirill, wields. He has called the "punk prayer" blasphemy, casting it as part of a sinister anti-clerical campaign.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were jailed in late February after taking to the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral and belting out a song calling on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out!" The plight of the three women, two of whom have young children, has made headlines in the West.
Governments and rights groups, as well as musicians such as Sting, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Franz Ferdinand, have expressed concern about the trial, reflecting doubts that Putin - who is serving his third presidential term and could be in power until 2024 - will become more tolerant of dissenting voices.
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"The court's decision will depend not on the law but on what the Kremlin wants," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident and veteran human rights activist who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group.
Symbolically, the trial will take place in the same Moscow courthouse where jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of stealing his own oil in a trial in 2010 that many Western politicians said looked like a crude Kremlin attempt to keep a man it saw as a political threat behind bars.
Angry lyrics
Charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility, the women face up to seven years in prison if convicted - a punishment rights groups say would be grossly disproportionate no matter what the law says.
Pussy Riot, who say they were inspired by 1990s-era feminist U.S. punk bands Bikini Kill and Riot Grrl, burst onto the scene this winter with angry lyrics and envelope-pushing performances, including one on Red Square, that went viral on the Internet.
The collective see themselves as the avant-guard of a disenchanted generation that is looking for creative ways to show its dissatisfaction with Putin's 12-year dominance of the political landscape.
Three female punk rockers are put on trial in Russia after taking over the pulpit at an Orthodox cathedral and performing a controversial song criticizing President Putin. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
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The all-girl group has no lead singer, and, in order that anyone may join, its members don multi-colored balaclavas, which have become its trademark. They numbered five when they formed in November but later expanded to 10 members, though there have been no performances in Russia since their bandmates' arrest.
Among the group's most noted outrageous acts was the drawing of an enormous phallus on a drawbridge in St. Petersburg. Several members participated in an obscene "fertility rite" at Moscow museum, mocking Dmitry Medvedev, who was elected Russian president the next day.
'Russian superhero' needed?
One member of the group, who spoke to Britain's?The Observer newspaper, said members of the band masked their faces to appear anonymous in public to show that "everybody can be Pussy Riot." The 25-year-old, who spoke via video interview while in hiding for fear of arrest, went by the nickname "Sparrow."
She said a "Russian superhero? was needed at the moment. Wearing masks and costumes during performances, "Sparrow" told The Observer, felt like "having a second life. It's like being Spider-Man or Catwoman? When I'm in a mask I feel a little bit like a superhero. I feel more power. I feel really brave. I believe that I can do everything and can change the situation."
She also told the newspaper: "It's a bit scary but we're sure what we are doing is right. ? When you're doing the right thing you're not scared. Because it's horrible what's happened to the girls."
From March 2012: Anti-Putin activists pay high price, but refuse to back down
Anthony Kiedis and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers spoke out in support of the group during the Calif. funk-rock band's July 22 concert in Moscow. Liedis wore a Pussy Riot t-shirt on stage and both musicians gave letters to?Pyotr Verzilov, Tolokonnikova's husband, according to The Guardian newspaper.
Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
Maria Alyokhina, a member of Pussy Riot, arrives at a Moscow court on Monday.
The Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis and Flea also spoke out on Sunday, during their gig at Moscow's Luzniky Stadium. Kiedis wore a Pussy Riot T-shirt, and both musicians presented letters to Pyotr Verzilov, Tolokonnikova's husband. "Nadya and Katya and Masha, we love you, we love to support you and are here to help you," Kiedis wrote, according to The Guardian. Flea reportedly commended their "bravery," and added: "I pray for your release."
Church revival
The unsanctioned performance that prompted the arrest of three of their members offended many believers in predominantly Orthodox Christian Russia, where the church has enjoyed a huge revival since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
But while some two-thirds of the country's 142 million people are considered Russian Orthodox, the number of practicing churchgoers is far smaller in a nation where the legacy of decades of official atheism looms large.
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Patriarch Kirill has said the church was "under attack by persecutors" and has encouraged pro-church demonstrations including a procession to Christ the Savior in April.
"This is only the small, visible tip of an iceberg of extremists," Mikhail Kuznetsov, a lawyer representing church security guards, said in an interview with the newspaper Moscow News last week. "They are aiming to destroy the thousand-year-old traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, to provoke a schism, and to deceivingly bring the flock not towards God, but towards Satan."
'Harmless civil activity'
The defendants' supporters say the charges are politically-motivated.
"People are being jailed for harmless civil activity," said Sergei Khramov, an employee at the courthouse where the trial will be held. He said the case had prompted him to attend his first opposition rally on Thursday.
"It makes us ashamed of the state,"?Khramov said.
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In a poll by the independent Levada Center and released by the prominent newspaper Kommersant earlier this month, 50 percent of Muscovites said they did not support a criminal trial for the members of Pussy Riot, with 36 percent supporting the trial.?
Pussy Riot's cathedral performance, a protest against the church's support for Putin, was part of a lively?protest movement that at its peak saw 100,000 people turn out for rallies in Moscow, some of the largest in Russia since the demise of the USSR.
The stunt was designed to highlight the close relationship between the Church and former KGB officer Putin, then prime minister, whose campaign to return to the presidency in a March 4 election was backed clearly, if informally, by Patriarch Kirill.
Putin won easily - amid opposition claims of some vote rigging - and remains popular. But the protests exposed the vulnerabilities of a leader who often plays to a silent majority of supporters with shows of strength and promises of stability while frustrating middle-class voters in big cities.
'Serious problems' with vote that kept Putin in power, monitors say
Rights activist Alexeyeva, 85, said she was certain the women would be convicted, because to clear them would embarrass both church and state and cast doubt over the grounds for their jailing.
"But I would very much like to hope their punishment is limited to time served," she said, adding that longer sentences would increase public anger against Putin and provide his foes - who are planning new protests in the autumn - with fresh ammunition.
A topless woman protests at the arrival of the Russian Orthodox Church leader in Ukraine. NBCNews.com's Alex Witt reports.
The trial comes as Putin is trying to rein in his opponents and forestall potential challenges. He has signed laws tightening controls on foreign-funded civil rights groups and sharply raised fines for violations of public order at street rallies.
Opposition leaders including anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and socialite Ksenia Sobchak have had their homes searched and faced repeated rounds of questioning over violence at a protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration on May 7.
Navalny is due to appear before investigators in a separate case on Monday, according to his lawyers, who said they were told he would be charged with a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
Reuters, The Associated Press and NBC News staff contributed to this report.
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