In every city there is a place that can be called its soul. In Dnepropetrovsk it is Transfiguration Cathedral. It was the place where the city was founded, as well as the main spiritual home for its inhabitants. The magnificent 200-year-old temple attracts all visitors of the city, amazes with its grandeur and beauty, inspires awe in the heart of every person.
A bright moment in the history of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior is the fact that the first stone in the foundation of this first stone structure of the new city was laid by Empress Catherine II. Also at the solemn ceremony on May 9, 1787 the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II was present.
According to the plan of the architect K. Gerua, who worked on the first project of the cathedral, it should have surpassed the scale of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, but — here we can say that the temple reflects the history of the city, these plans were not destined to be realized. The war with Turkey, and then the death of the Empress and Potemkin suspended the construction of the entire city and the temple.
The construction of the temple was completed only almost half a century after its laying — in 1835. And erected in accordance not with grandiose plans, and the realities of time, the structure eventually occupied the area, which according to the first project of the temple should have occupied only its altar, V.G. Belinsky wrote about it: «there is a temple, quite large, but it occupies only the place of the altar according to the previous plan».
The project of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Dnepropetrovsk, which became a reality, was designed by the famous architect A.D. Zakharov, whose other creations included the Admiralty building in St. Petersburg. Despite the fact that the temple was erected not as large as Potemkin dreamed, it was recognized as one of the best examples of the heyday of classicism in Russian architecture, and later — one of the outstanding cult architectural monuments of Ukraine.
Everything in this bright cathedral is harmonious, each detail of its decoration complements the other.
The main entrance of the beautiful cathedral is decorated with a majestic six-column portico, and the two side ones — columns on both sides, the temple is crowned with a gilded dome of round drum type with a small Orthodox cross. Corresponds to the external and internal, also made in gold colors decoration of the temple. Up to our time in a magnificent form have survived wall paintings made by academicians of painting V. Sazonov, M. Terebenev and S. Bezsonov in the early XIX century. The stucco decor and iconostasis are decorated with gilding, which in combination with the light walls of the temple creates a feeling of spaciousness, lightness and incredible harmony.
Above the main entrance to the cathedral rises a sharp graceful spire of the bell tower. On this bell tower today is located one of the largest bells in Ukraine, the largest in the southern and left-bank parts of the country weighing 6 tons. Parishioners attribute miraculous properties to this bell: if you hit it with your own hands, you can improve your immune system — parishioners regularly climb the bell tower of the Transfiguration Cathedral, and church officials do not forbid them to do so.
The fate of this truly bright attraction of Dnepropetrovsk was not easy: it was saved from destruction during the Soviet period only thanks to the efforts of an outstanding man, the former director of the Historical Museum D.I. Yavornitsky, who turned it into a museum for protection. The troubled times have passed, the difficult period in the fate of the temple has also passed: today people from all over the country come here to see the magnificent Transfiguration Cathedral and its relics — the icon of the Mother of God «Iverskaya» and the relics of the Baptist John, St. Matthew, St. Luke and St. Mark, St. Anna and St. Catherine, Prince A. Nevsky.