The modern Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya Church on Spasskaya Street in Vladimir has, perhaps, the longest history among all the city's churches. It was built at the end of the 18th century on the site of the church that Andrei Bogolyubsky erected in his princely court back in 1164. Although some sources date its construction even to 1116. Be that as it may, it burned down during the great city fire of 1778.
It was immediately decided to build a new church on the site of the lost shrine. The architects made every effort to recreate the appearance of the original building. The result was quite interesting - 12th-century Old Russian style with the influence of the then-fashionable Baroque. Two surviving artifacts were transferred from the old church to the new one: a silver chalice from 1638 and an altar cross from 1658.
After half a century of inactivity during the Soviet era, the church was reopened to worshippers only in the 1990s.
Today, the white-stone Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya Church has a tall hipped roof, above which stands a heptagonal drum crowned with an onion dome and a cross. Next to the main building, you can notice a new chapel opened on November 6, 1998 - on the Day of Remembrance of Orthodox soldiers fallen on the battlefield.
