The first and foremost church in the city of Odessa, the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral (Saviour's Transfiguration Cathedral), belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), and was founded in 1794 by Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni, a Romanian clergyman who served as Metropolitan of Moldavia (1792), Metropolitan of Kherson and Crimea (1793–1799), Metropolitan of Kiev and Halych (1799–1803), Exarch of Moldo-Wallachia (1806–1812), and Archbishop of Chişinău (1812–1821), being the first head of the church in Bessarabia after the Russian annexation. The building lagged several years behind schedule when the newly appointed governor of New Russia, Armand-Emmanuel de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, employed the Italian architect Francesco Frappoli to complete the edifice.
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