Three women who protested against Vladimir Putin in a "punk prayer" on the altar of Russia's main cathedral went on trial yesterday in a case seen as a test of the leader's treatment of dissenters.

The women from the band Pussy Riot face up to seven years in prison for a performance in February in which they entered Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, ascended the altar and called on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out!"

Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were brought to Moscow's Khamovniki court for Russia's highest-profile trial since former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted in 2010.

Supporters chanted "Girls, we're with you!" and "Victory!" as the women, each handcuffed to a female officer, were led into the courthouse through a side entrance. Streets around the court, on a high Moscow River embankment, were closed.

They were led into a metal and clear-plastic courtroom cage, where they milled and spoke with lawyers as preparations began.

"We did not want to offend anybody," Tolokonnikova said. "We admit our political guilt, but not legal guilt."

The women are charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility.

But in statements read by a lawyer, who sometimes struggled with the handwritten texts, they said they were protesting against church leader Patriarch Kirill's political support for Putin and had no animosity towards the church or the faithful.