In the city of Oboyan, an ancient church dedicated to the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God has been preserved. When ten refugees from Smolensk were fleeing from the Poles, they carried the icon out of the besieged city and stopped for the night in Oboyan. In the morning, they discovered that the icon seemed to have become attached to a picturesque hill, which served as the reason for the construction of the church in 1739.

For a long time, the Smolensk church, consecrated in 1790, was the largest in the city. This is why in 1825, the remains of Alexander I were placed here for the night. The parishioners took care of the church, and an icon of the Savior from Jerusalem, consecrated at the Holy Sepulchre, was brought here.

During the Soviet era, the church suffered desecration, but fortunately, it was not destroyed. The cross was knocked down, and the ancient bell, whose sound carried for 20 km, was thrown to the ground through a breach in the bell tower.

This church, the only Smolensk one in the Kursk Diocese, is a monument of architecture from the 18th to 20th centuries. The restoration of the church began only in 1991 when it was handed over to the diocese. In 2000, one of its rectors, Peter Grigoryev, who was shot in 1937 during the repressions, was canonized.