On March 13, 1719, Archimandrite Irinarh of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery consecrated the church in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord. At that time, all the monastery buildings, including the cathedral, were wooden and often suffered from fires. One such fire, which occurred on April 3, 1754, after the Easter liturgy, destroyed the church and the bell tower. Thanks to the contributions of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the cathedral was restored by 1756. The temple had five altars: the main one in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord and four in the chapels. Academician Nikolai Ozeretskovsky, who visited the monastery in 1787, noted that its location was beautiful, but the wooden structures did not match this grandeur.

To revive the monastery, Metropolitan Gavriil Petrov invited Hieromonk Nazariy Kondratiev from the Sarov Desert. On March 7, 1782, Nazariy was appointed the builder of the Valaam Monastery and elevated to the rank of igumen. He developed a plan for stone buildings, which was approved on February 10, 1785. Over eight years, with the help of benefactors, all the monastery buildings were erected. The Transfiguration Cathedral became two-storied, with five onion-shaped domes. The lower church was consecrated in 1789, and the upper one in 1794. For the first time, a church in honor of the founders of the monastery, Sergius and Herman, appeared in Valaam.

Igumen Nazariy left the monastery in prosperity. His successor, Hieromonk Innocent, continued to beautify the monastery. In 1808, a contract was signed with painter Alexei Kozmin for the decoration of the cathedral. In 1823, the wooden reliquary was replaced with a silver one. In 1828, Elias Lennart, the creator of the epic 'Kalevala,' visited the monastery and was impressed by its magnificence.

In the 19th century, the monastery reached its peak, especially under Igumen Damaskin. Valaam became known for its strict monastic life and blessed elders. With the opening of steamboat communication with St. Petersburg, the number of pilgrims increased. In 1846, Archimandrite Ignaty Bryanchaninov proposed to build a new large cathedral. In 1874, Professor M.A. Shchurupov developed a project for the new cathedral, but it was implemented by Igumen Damaskin's student, Igumen Ionafan II, who commissioned the project to A.Y. Silin. Construction began in 1887.

The construction of the cathedral faced difficulties, but after verifying rumors of disorder, work continued. Architects G.I. Karpov and N.D. Prokofyev made changes to the project. In 1892, the main altar of the lower church was consecrated, and in 1896, the upper church. In 1940, after the Soviet-Finnish War, the monastery came under the USSR. During the war, the monastery was used as a military base, and after the war, as a boarding house.

In 1971, the cathedral was placed under state protection, but by that time it had already suffered greatly. In 1989, the revival of monastic life in Valaam began. In 2002, the Patriarchal Advisory Council was established for the restoration of the monastery. In 2005, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II consecrated the Transfiguration Cathedral.