In the mid-1780s, the wooden Transfiguration Church, where the holy relics of St. Makary rested in the basement, burned down. Witnesses claimed that a miracle occurred over the elder's grave: there was no burning wood, no coals, not even ash, and the place was covered with an unusual dew. In 1786, a new wooden church was built on the site of the burned temple in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord. In the late second decade of the 19th century, a stone Transfiguration Church was built nearby, one of the chapels of which was dedicated to St. Makary of Pisem and St. Paul of Obnorsk. The consecration of the new five-domed church in the classical style with a high three-tiered bell tower took place in 1821.

After the events of 1917, many churches in the Kostroma region were destroyed, but the history of the cemetery at Pisem turned out favorably: its stone church was never closed, which is attributed to the prayerful intercession of St. Makary. In 1929, collectivization began in the Bui district, and churches in the ancient villages of the Pisem region were closed one after another. However, the cemetery, located away from populated areas, remained untouched in the 1930s, although it suffered: the bells were thrown from its bell tower, and the stone fence with gates was dismantled. By the early 1940s, this was the only place in the Kostroma region where the relics of the saint were preserved in an active church, accessible for veneration.

In the first years after the war, pilgrimages to the relics continued, but in 1951, the authorities decided to put an end to this. In early August, before the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the representative of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Kostroma region, M. Galkin, ordered to close access to the relics and the church. On August 8, workers, following Galkin's instructions, boarded up the entrances to the basement and the church.

At the end of 1993, at the initiative of Bishop Alexander of Kostroma and Galich, the diocesan assembly decided to revive the monastery. On February 26, 1994, Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia blessed the renewal of the Makaryovo-Pisemsky Monastery as a women's community. Six bells, gathered from different places or newly cast, were installed on the bell tower of the Transfiguration Church, and now their ringing once again resonates over the holy place of St. Makary's deeds.