The church was commissioned by a group of Muscovite and Novgorodian merchants, in this case from Zapolskaya and Konyukhovaya streets. It was erected in 1536 on the foundations of an older church dating back to 1377, which explains why it retains the earlier plan of a single-apse church. Although they used the old foundations, Novgorodian masters erected a church which shows far greater Muscovite influence than that of St Procopius. They gave it five domes, thus breaking with the long tradition of a single dome which had prevailed in Novgorodian architecture from the middle of the 12th century to the beginning of the 16th,