The history of Ascension Cathedral in the city of Alma-Ata dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century and it is very closely related to the history of the city itself. In 1855, according to the decree of Nickolay I, a small town called Verny was formed, and 12 years later it became the regional center of the Turkistan region. In the early 1970s, the Turkistan Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church had been founded. During this time it had been decided to build a new cathedral, as the number of parishioners reached about 1800, and the old building was too small. However, only ten years later the first projects of the future temple were completed. At that time, Serebrennikov's project had been approved, however, due to the death of the architect and the earthquake in 1887, some changes were made to the construction time. The terrible cataclysm destroyed almost all the buildings in the city of Verny. After a number of studies had been conducted by the best Russian engineers, the construction of buildings in this region were approved.
Finally, in 1904, the construction of the temple began. Andrei Pavlovich Zenkov was in charge of the work, and the cathedral was built according to his project.. Zenkov played a huge role in both the development of the project and its construction. During the construction, many new technology was being used , which had been initiated personaly by Andrei Pavlovich.
Construction was completed in 1907. The first test that the building had to pass was as early as 1910 when an earthquake hit. The building only luche lowered its position a bit and got away with some broken windows and a bent cross.
Accension Cathedral is a unique planned architecural structure and is almost one of a kind. It is the tallest wooden temple in the world as well as one of the tallest wooden structures. It holds almost two thousand people.
In 1995, the church was handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church for free use. The first prior of the new era was Arch-priest Eugeny Vorobyev. In the same year the church had been visited by Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexiy II. And in 2010 the church was visited by Patriarch Kirill.
At present, the prior of the cathedral is Metropolitan of Astana and Kazakhstan Alexander. There is a Sunday school at the cathedral. A parish therapist also advises at the cathedral. There are daily worships in the temple.
