Odessa Spaso-Preobrazhenskiy Cathedral is the largest church in Odessa. It was laid in the first year of the city in 1794, and expanded several times and was completely destroyed by the Bolsheviks in 1936. It was restored in 2001.
The cathedral reflects the level of development of Odessa. At the beginning of the XIX century it was a small religious building, and within a century it became one of the largest cathedrals of the Russian Empire. The cathedral holds about 10 thousand people, and the Cathedral Square was the main area of the city. In 1936, the chief architect of Odessa has signed a decree that the Church is not of architectural value and the cathedral was completely disassembled.
In place of the cathedral was built a place of entertainment and in the place of the altar they built a city toilet. After the restoration of the Cathedral fountain was moved to the location of the first city fountain. The reconstruction of the cathedral lasted from 1999 to 2005. Construction of the Temple was carried out solely on the donations of the faithful. Budget funds for the construction were not used. In 2008, in honor of the bicentenary of the consecration of the Cathedral, was cast Ukraine's largest bell weighing nearly 15 tons.