The building of the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord in Tallinn has a rich history and a rather difficult fate. Originally, it was a small Chapel of St. Wenceslaus, built presumably as early as 1219. Thirty years later, the Danish king Erik VI founded the Cistercian Convent of St. Michael here. There is a legend that Jesus Christ himself appeared to the monarch in a dream and ordered him to do this, so that he could atone for his earthly sins.
In 1433, the church was destroyed by fire, then restored, but later closed during the Reformation. Later, from 1631, its premises served as both the first Estonian gymnasium and a printing house, and a little later even as a Swedish military garrison and its chapel. But everything changed with the arrival of Russian troops in Tallinn - in 1716, the first service was held in the building of what was now an Orthodox church.
We advise you to stop by this church to see the magnificent Baroque iconostasis by Ivan Zarudny and Tallinn's oldest bell, cast back in 1575. Incidentally, it was in this very church that Pushkin's great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Gannibal, married his beloved in 1736.
