Description of the attraction
The Transfiguration Church is an Old Believer church located in the city of Kostroma, on Volgarei Street, on the right bank of the Volga.
Before the construction of the stone church, there were two wooden churches in the Spasskaya Sloboda: Nikolsky and Preobrazhensky. They are first mentioned in the scribes of 1628. The Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior was erected in their place in 1685-1688. It had two pillars, five domes, three apses, had a hipped bell tower and a warm chapel in honor of the unmercenary Saints Cosmas and Damian of Asia. This was evidenced by a stone embedded slab located on the façade of the northern apse.
Initially, the details of the external decoration of the temple were decorated with polychrome painting, and green glazed tiles were also used to decorate the temple. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the church was painted with frescoes, which were preserved until its closure. At the beginning of the 18th century, a porch was added to the temple in front of the northern entrance, and in the 19th century, the facades of the temple, covered with lime plaster, were painted by the Kostroma art team of Vasily Kuzmin in a "checkered pattern". The floors on the temple's salt were laid with cast-iron slabs, and the church and the cemetery were surrounded by a stone brick fence.
Ancient icons were kept in the Transfiguration Church, as well as old church utensils, a cypress altar cross with particles of holy relics, overlaid with chased silver.
There were six bells on the bell tower of the church, one of them was cast at Martynov's Yaroslavl factory in 1761 by master Ivan Kornilov
In the 20th century, the parish of the Transfiguration Church included 7 villages located within ten kilometers from the temple. The church was closed in 1934 and was converted into a factory dormitory. The church fence, chapters and the upper part of the bell tower were destroyed, and the internal volume was divided into two floors.
As a result of the restoration work carried out in 1968-1978 according to the project of the architect L. S. Vasiliev, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior was returned to its original appearance.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, the leader of the famous strelnikov choir I. A. Sergeev began work on obtaining permission to create an Old Believer community in Kostroma. He was offered a choice of two dilapidated churches in the Trans-Volga part of Kostroma: Ilyinsky, standing on a hill, on lands that belonged in the 17th century to the husband of Boyar Morozova, who later became a holy confessor and martyr. Sergeev chose a more spacious temple - the Transfiguration.
In 1987, a group of Old Believers Christians, led by Ioann Alekseevich Sergeev, were handed the keys to the Transfiguration Church beyond the Volga. Since that time, restoration work began in the temple. Immediately, we began with the preparation of the premises for conducting divine services, already in 1989, Bishop John of Kiev and All Ukraine (now Archbishop of Kostroma and Yaroslavl) consecrated a side-altar in honor of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian.
But even after that, work continued on the improvement of the interior of the Transfiguration Church. October 27, 1990 I. A. Sergeev died, and the care of the parish fell on the shoulders of his daughters, who initially helped their father. In those days, the Liturgy was sometimes served by the rector of the church in the village of Pavleikha, Father Anatoly Nosochkov, then Father Vasily Plevin, and then Father Vladimir Kuznetsov from the village of Strelnikovo. But without a permanent priest, the parish could not develop further. The parishioners have been looking for a suitable priest for a long time and have opted for Vasily Terentyev, the stalker of the Strelnikov temple.
On June 26, 1994, Metropolitan Alimpiy ordained Reader Vasily to the deacon, and on October 23, 1994, Vasily Terentyev became priest of the Transfiguration Church in Kostroma.
In the spring of 1997, the main church was already ready for consecration. On the feast of the Feodorovskaya-Kostroma Icon of the Mother of God, on March 27, Father Vasily established a marching throne. From that time on, services were performed in the main church. On August 7, 1997, Metropolitan Alimpiy consecrated a temple and a throne in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Since 1998, the Transfiguration Church has been the cathedral of the Kostroma and Yaroslavl dioceses.
