Transfiguration Cathedral in the Uglich Kremlin

The Transfiguration Cathedral in the Uglich Kremlin is the main cathedral of Uglich. The building that has survived to this day was laid in 1706 by order of Tsar Peter I, and construction was completed in 1713. The quadrangular hall without internal supports impresses with its monumentality. 

The northern wall of the present Transfiguration Cathedral is located where the southern wall of the cathedral, built by Prince Andrey the Big, in the second half of the 15th century, used to be. Now near the cathedral and inside it you can see fragments of the foundation of the old cathedral under glass. 

During the reign of Prince Andrew the Big, Uglich was in its heyday. He expanded the territory of the Kremlin and surrounded it with a powerful wooden fortress wall. His palace was also made of wood, but in 1482 Andrey built a stone throne Chambers of the Uglich Dukes, which has survived to this day. At the same time, he erected the stone Transfiguration Cathedral.  

In 1591, the murder of Prince Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible, took place in Uglich. He had succession rights to the throne as the last representative of the Rurik dynasty. Dmitry was buried in the Transfiguration Cathedral, and his mother took monastic vows of the Epiphany Monastery in Uglich. After the death of the childless tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, Boris Godunov took the throne, but a Time of the Turmoil began in the country.  

In 1604, the impostor False Dmitry appeared in Poland. He proclaimed himself the escaped Prince Dmitry. Having led the Polish army, he captured Moscow and the Russian throne. Prince Dmitry`s mother was summoned from the monastery and forced to admit that he was "her miraculously escaped child." However, the False Dmitry did not stay on the throne for long and was killed.

On May 28, 1606, Dmitry`s body was taken out of the Transfiguration Cathedral of Uglich and carried to Moscow in arms as part of the procession. Maria Nagaya admitted that it was her murdered son. On June 3, 1606, the Russian Orthodox Church beatified Prince Dmitry. After that, he was reburied in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.  

The Transfiguration Cathedral in Uglich was badly damaged during the Time of the Turmoil. Polish troops captured Uglich in 1609. Residents took refuge from them in the cathedral, but the Poles broke into the temple and set it on fire.  

The masonry walls were damaged as a result of the fire, and the temple had to be dismantled. In 1712, the construction of the new Transfiguration Cathedral of Uglich was completed. A special feature of this temple is a large inner hall made without columns and supports. The length of the walls of the inner square hall is 14 meters. It is covered by a vault 17 meters high. In 1730, a bell tower with a clock was built next to the cathedral. 

The walls of the cathedral were painted in 1809-1811 by the artel of the Yaroslavl master Timofey Medvedev. In total, 59 compositions on biblical subjects can be seen on the wall. 32 of them are very large. A huge six-tiered iconostasis in the Naryshkin Baroque style was installed in the Transfiguration Cathedral of Uglich in 1853.