Spassky Cathedral

Yelabuga's main church grew up beside a small wooden Church of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, which had already stood here by the middle of the seventeenth century. When the town became the center of Yelabuga Uyezd, the former building could no longer accommodate its parishioners, and construction of the present cathedral began next door with state and merchant money. Its white five-domed structure was later enlarged with donations from parishioners, and its tall bell tower was built in five tiers. The small Alexander Nevsky Chapel nearby preserves the memory of the former church, while the old icon dedicated to the church is now in Intercession Cathedral.

Twice a year, old Yelabuga stopped its usual activities. Shopkeepers locked their shops, craftsmen left their work, and residents went beyond the town with church banners. Four men carried a large darkened icon—about five feet three inches high. One route led to Menzelinsk; another stretched through villages to Malmyzh and took up June and July. The image was seen off and welcomed here, at the town's main church.

This image was the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands—the face of Jesus Christ on a cloth. The phrase “Not Made by Hands” refers to the church tradition depicted, not to the Yelabuga panel: it was, of course, painted by an icon painter. How it came to the town is not reliably known.

A local tradition was recorded in eighteen seventy-one by the merchant Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin, a former mayor—the elected head of Yelabuga and the father of the future landscape painter. According to this legend, an unnamed icon painter from the village of Krasnoye had a dream and began work without a client. He prepared a large panel and painted the image, although he did not yet know who would pay for the work.

At the same time, an elder from Yelabuga's Ostaltsov family supposedly dreamed several times of a man demanding that he travel to Krasnoye: an icon was already waiting there, and the artist would agree to part with it for a small price. The elder finally set off upstream along the Vyatka River, found the master, and took the panel back. On the way, local residents tried to take it from him. Tradition says that a miracle prevented them; the established fact is more modest—by the middle of the seventeenth century, a wooden Church of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands already stood on this site. Researchers date the icon itself differently.

The image made this church the main one for the entire surrounding area. When Yelabuga became the center of Yelabuga Uyezd in seventeen eighty, that is, the administrative center of a large area, the former church could no longer accommodate its parishioners. Construction of the present cathedral began next to it: the treasury provided the money, and Yelabuga merchants helped. Later, parishioners again collected donations, enlarged the building, and erected a tall five-tier bell tower. In eighteen sixty-seven, a contemporary wrote that during a service, nearly all the town's residents could fit inside.

Services are held in the cathedral today, but the old icon that gave it its name is in Yelabuga's Intercession Cathedral. The small Alexander Nevsky Chapel nearby marks the site of the former Church of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands. The large white cathedral was built next door when a city could no longer fit around one heavy panel.