In the Address Calendar of the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese for 1904, three churches are listed in the village of Apraxin: the Holy Trinity, the Vladimir Mother of God, and the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which was under construction. The Apraxin parish included one village, where about two thousand parishioners of both sexes lived at the end of the 19th century.

According to clerical records, the Trinity Church in Apraxin was built in 1730. It was a single-altar wooden church in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity, simple in architecture: a square shape with a tent roof and one dome made of wooden shingles, topped with a wooden cross. The church was located in the center of the village on a plain intersected by the Budyl stream. Until 1869, the Trinity Church did not have a bell tower, which was added that year during renovations. The wooden roof was replaced with an iron one, the domes and crosses were covered with white tin, and the walls were painted white. For almost a century and a half, the church remained unheated, and only in 1882, thanks to the efforts of church elder A.P. Kuznetsov and the chairman of the church parish guardianship F.G. Glazov, it was insulated. With the 1200 rubles they collected, repairs were made inside the church: the walls, ceilings, floors, doors, and windows were updated, and the iconostasis was gilded. At that time, a brick watchman's lodge and storage room were built near the church. In 1884, the construction of a stone fence around the church was completed.

In 1841, the last serf owner of the village of Apraxin, Alexander Petrovich Novosiltsev, built a stone church in the village cemetery in the name of the Vladimir Mother of God. This small single-altar church without a bell tower had a round shape reminiscent of the ancient Roman pantheon, with a crypt beneath it. The iconostasis was three-tiered, with carvings and gilding. The entrance door was located on the western side, accessed by a stepped staircase. Four bells weighing six poods each hung under the pediment. The church was painted white. For three decades, the church remained unblessed. Alexander Petrovich Novosiltsev died on March 19, 1871, and was buried in the crypt beneath the church, where his mother, Natalia Alexeyevna Novosiltseva, had previously been buried. In the year of his death, on August 5, 1871, the church was consecrated in honor of the Vladimir Mother of God.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Trinity Church had deteriorated significantly, and the construction of a third stone church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, known as the Nikolskaya Church, began in Apraxin. Until 1869, the Apraxin parish had a full clergy, then only a priest and a psalmist remained. The clergy received sustenance from 34 desyatinas of land, of which 30 were arable, 3 were meadows, and one was homestead. Among the priests of the 19th century, Father Nikolai Vasilyev stands out, who was succeeded in 1819 by Alexander Nikitin, and in 1838, Nikolai Ivanovich Lavrov, who served for 23 years. In 1861, Nikolai Yefimovich Lebedev, a graduate of the Nizhny Novgorod Theological Seminary, became a priest. According to the Address Calendar of the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese for 1904, the Apraxin parish had 1147 men and 1235 women, 38 desyatinas of land, and a church parish school. The clergyman was Father Alexander Nikolaevich Lebedev, 36 years old; deacon, A.I. Pozharsky; psalmist, A.P. Pokrovsky; church elder, A.P. Kuznetsov.