The Transfiguration Cathedral (Catedrala Schimbarea la Față) is the main Russian Orthodox church of Bender and the largest religious building in the city. The current structure is essentially a nineteenth-century cathedral in the Russian-Byzantine style typical of churches built across the south-western fringes of the empire after the Russian annexation of Bessarabia in 1812.
The cathedral closed during the Soviet period and was used at various times as a warehouse and a museum of atheism. Returned to the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Tiraspol and Dubăsari in the 1990s, it has been restored and is once again the spiritual centre of the city's Orthodox community. The interior is a modern recreation of the traditional iconostasis-and-fresco scheme; the exterior, with its central dome and squat bell tower, is the more interesting feature, particularly from across the small park to the south-east.