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The Transfiguration Church

The Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa – is one of its biggest churches. It was founded in the first year of the city’s existence, in 1794, it was widened a few times.

In 1936 it was destroyed by Bolsheviks, and it was reconstructed in 2001.

The cathedral represented the level of Odessa’s development. In the beginning of XIX century it was only a little building, and within a century it became one of the biggest cathedrals in Russia Empire. The cathedral could sit more than 10 000 people; the Soborna square was the main square of the city. This was the place where all the public events took place. For many years the coordinates of the Soborna Square were used in travel books as coordinates of Odessa city.The square is located near the Greek square and the city garden.

In 1825 the bell tower was added to the cathedral. Also the reconstruction works were performed I 1841, 1870, 1894 and 1900s. In 1936 the cathedral was taken apart by pieces. As the main architect of Odessa at that time issued an order that this church didn’t have any architectural value.

The reconstruction was performed using the money from people’s contributions. The money from the state treasury was not used. The work began in 1999 and was finished in 2005 in 2008 to honor the 200th anniversary since the cathedral was baptized the biggest and the heaviest bell was created for this church. Its weight is almost 15tons.