In Bely Yar, there were two churches: the Trinity Church, likely founded in 1652 and considered the oldest church in the territory of modern Ulyanovsk's left bank, and the stone Smolensk Church, built after 1910. The Trinity Church was repeatedly relocated and rebuilt due to fires, and only in 1871 was the construction of a new stone church mostly completed. It was closed in 1938 and likely destroyed in 1954. This site is now flooded. The Smolensk Church was destroyed in the second half of the 1950s. From 1952 to 1954, residents of two lower streets of Bely Yar were relocated from the flooding zone of the Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Power Station to a new place, the village of Novy Bely Yar, and the former village began to be called 'Old Bely Yar.' Valuable information about the history of the Bely Yar church is contained in the parish chronicle, which was kept from 1867 to 1884. It states that the existing wooden church was built by parishioners in 1854 after a fire in 1848 that destroyed the previous church.

The burned church, as seen from the clerical records, was built in 1790 on the bank of a Volga River arm. Due to the riverbank collapse, it was moved inside the village in 1813, where it was destroyed by fire. This church was also wooden and had one altar in the name of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity. Before 1790, there was another church in the name of the Holy Trinity with two chapels: in the name of Alexius, the Man of God, and Mary of Egypt. However, due to the lack of written sources, it is unknown what material it was built from and when. The only evidence of its existence is an inscription on the Gospel, gifted by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1652, which is kept in the church sacristy. The inscription reads: 'In the year 1652, on February 21, His Majesty the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Russia, the Autocrat, granted this book of the Gospel to the altar in Bely Yar, the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity, then in the tradition of the holy righteous Alexius, the Man of God, and in the tradition of Mary of Egypt.' Nothing more is known about the fate of this church.

Near the existing church, there are two chapels: one at the parish cemetery and the other at the site of the church that burned down in 1847. Both chapels are wooden, quadrangular, covered with shingles, and built by the efforts of private individuals. The cemetery is located on the northeast side, 200 fathoms from the church at the entrance to the village by the edge of the forest; it was allocated during the construction of the church in 1854. Previously, the cemetery was located nearby to the east of the burned church and was closed after its destruction. The land associated with the church consists of 32.8 hectares of arable land and 43.7 hectares of hay meadows, which have long been allocated by parishioners for the permanent use of the parish. Another document indicates a different year of publication for the Gospel, 1651, and also mentions the Tsar's handwritten inscription from 1653. Although the chronicle does not mention the time of the construction of the earliest church in Bely Yar, the census books indicate that there was already a church in the fortress city immediately after its construction in 1653. Therefore, the Trinity Church can be considered the oldest of all churches that have ever been located in the territory of modern Ulyanovsk's Zavolzhye.