The cathedral was built over 15 years, from 1898 to 1913, next to the Trinity Cathedral, entirely funded by donations from parishioners. The project was developed by the Vologda provincial architect N.S. Pukhlov. The need for a new church arose because the stone Trinity Cathedral, consecrated in 1756, could not accommodate all the residents of Velsk and the surrounding villages.

The initiators of the construction were first-guild merchant and chairman of the church board Konon Bonifatevich Popov, the rector of the Trinity Cathedral Nikolai Slednikov, and church elder Pyotr Ushakov. The iconostasis was partially made in Vologda and partially on-site under the guidance of a local master. The icons for the cathedral were painted in one of the workshops in Moscow.

The cathedral was a two-story cross-domed building with five domes and four pillars, featuring a semicircular apse and a rectangular porch with a portal. It was built of brick on a lime mortar and plastered to imitate stone masonry. The majestic building was topped with five onion-shaped domes on light drums. To the east, it had a semicircular two-story apse, and to the west, a rectangular porch with a portal. Inside, the cathedral was divided into three naves, and massive pylons supported arches, on which the light drums rested.

On July 1, 1913, the main altar of the church was solemnly consecrated in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord. The next day, the southern chapel in honor of the first martyr Stephen was consecrated, and on July 3, the northern chapel in honor of St. Seraphim of Sarov. The cathedral initially did not have its own bell tower and was designed as a cold church, so services were held from spring to autumn.

In 1922, during the campaign to aid the starving in the Volga region, church valuables were confiscated from the cathedral, and the parish was closed.

From 1931 to 1934, the Transfiguration Cathedral underwent significant reconstruction, resulting in the loss of the church's finishes, changes and bricking up of many window and door openings, dismantling of the porch with the vestibule, and a reorganization of the interior.

To the east of the apse, a rectangular extension was added, completely covering the semicircle of the apse on the first floor. The second floor of the cathedral was divided into two, and partitions changed the layout on all floors. Flat ceilings replaced vaulted ones, and the original window openings with semicircular tops were converted into rectangular ones. Additional window openings were created, and the apse windows on the second floor were bricked up. The domes with light drums, the second tier of the porch, the porch with the portal, and the upper frieze of the cathedral's cornice, designed as arched niches with archivolts, were lost.

After major repairs, the building was handed over to the district House of Culture, which continues to operate there to this day.