This church was most likely built like the church of John the Baptist in Dubrovytsia. Wooden religious building was located in the area where, at the moment, the railroad depot is located.
Since 1935, according to the decision of the parochial church council, the construction of a garrison stone church was started in Sarny. Since the beginning, it was built for families of military. The students of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków made a significant contribution to the construction together with the local Catholics. . Construction lasted until September 1939. At that time, the pastoral work was headed by the abbot Yan Sviderskii and the vicar Alfons Orendarski.
According to the memories of the parishioners, the church was built of stones, which were mined in Klesiv, and had several underground passages in the foundation. The bell tower remained unfinished. But in the church there was an organ, oak benches, and columns, framed by marble from local deposits to the middle. The building became an organic element of building a new western part of the city, the urban development of which began in the 1920s. Correspondence of the Committee for the Construction of the Church in Sarny with the Ministry of Religious Admissions and Public Education of the Second Polish Republic confirmed significant financial support for the construction of the temple by local railway workers, military Border Protection Corps (Polish: COR) and parishioners.
Until 1945, the last abbot was Fr. Yan Levinskyi. With the beginning of the war construction was suspended, and Fr. Levinskyi drove away in 1945 together with the last Poles of these lands to Poland`s city Lodz. He took with him the icon of Most Holy Mother of God of Ostrobramska when he went. The temple was built, except for internal finishing works. The bell tower remained unfinished. Since 1959, the authorities closed the church and turned it first into a granary, and then into a food warehouse. In 1953, the Rivne Regional Council decided on February 14 to designate the church as a place of culture, but it never fulfilled its functions. In 1939 the house where the priest lived was given to a military hospital. Then it housed the Military Committee, and later there were Civil Defense and Motor Vehicle Courses After the Second World War, worships took place secretly in a parishioner who lived near the church. Indigenous population remember that the church had its bell. When the war was started that bell was not taken out, because it together with ritual attributes (a glass for sacrament) was hidden for preservation.
Anew community was registered on October 29, 1991 by Executive Committee of People's Deputies of the Rivne Oblast Council. At the request of the parish in Poland, an account was opened to which Catholics of other countries, guests and everyone could send funds for the restoration of the shrine.
On August 5, 1995, the repaired church was consecrated by the archbishops: V. Zolek from Poland and M. Yavorskyi.
Since autumn 1992, the parish was served by the priests of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Transfiguration is located in the administrative centre of the city. Nearby there was a Polish gymnasium and hospitals. In this area of the city there is a highway to Dubrovitsya and Belarus.
The project of the church in Sarny was executed in 1933 by architect Władysław Stahon from Lutsk. The composition of the building was quite traditional and often repeated in the shrines of this period: the monumental block of the three-nave church is combined with a light slender bell tower (it was not built). Massive central part - the shell of the main nave - on both sides is supported by lower volumes, lined, like the whole house, with black “Volyn stone”(basalt). In this purely modernistic object, devoid of any other decor, the architect allowed himself some “Gothic” reminiscences: a round window above the entrance three-section portal and a stepwise completion of the pediment testified to the continued search for a compromise between modern and traditional forms.
The church was built in the Renaissance style. The walls of the church are double. The outer treated wall is made of basalt of Klesiv mines, and the inner main wall is made of brick. The internal location of the church is tripartite and divided by columns. The roof, in the pre-war period, was covered with tied reed flooring, after restoration wooden rafters were covered from the outside with tin, and from the middle, they were lined with wood. Side 8 windows of rectangular longitudinal shape. Successfully combined in the overall composition rounded stained-glass windows: most of all above the central entrance, 8 near the side walls, and 3 in the altar part of the temple. Since the temple is located on a high foundation, we have witnessed that from the basement it was possible to get underground passages to the railway station and the Old Polish cemetery. At the moment the entrance is not defined. At the bottom of the temple, under the central altar, there are rooms that were designed to stay the deceased before burial. Now there is situated a lower chapel and two classes of Sunday school. From the older generation of parishioners, it is known that 6 columns of the temple before the war were framed to the middle of marble slabs, benches for the parishioners are made of oak and on the choir was placed organ. Since the war organ, marble slabs and benches have not survived. In 1994, before the consecration of the restored church, icon of Most Holy Mother of God of Ostrobramska, which belonged to the church, was found in Poland, and with the departure of the last priest in 1945 was considered lost. Citizen of the city Lodz at its own expense was restored, engild and made silverily, and returned to Sarny. August 6, 1995, during the consecration of the restored shrine, the icon was placed in the central altar part of the temple. Nearby there is a 22ft oak cross made by of the local carver Vasylia Mysantsia. An interesting fact is that the church had its own bell, which was lost in the war and has not been found until today. Now the construction of a stone bell tower over the right side entrance to the temple is underway. August 10, 2014, during the patronal festive worship, the resident of Lutsk Fr. Vitaliy Skomarovsky consecrated the bell, presented to the Catholic Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Sarny by the family of Horoshkevich and former parishioners of Guta Stepanska.
The church, one of the few in Ukraine, had its own pipe organ. The special feature of the church is the icon of Our Lady of Ostrobramska, made by local sculptor, artist, teacher of Sarny Polish Gymnasium Anthony Chernevsky. It is important that in the postwar years, for worship the parishioners came from Rivne Fr. Seraphim Kashuba.
Location: near the road Rivne-Sarny-Horodyshche, near the district place of culture and School Collegium named T.G. Shevchenko.