The church was built between 1747-51 by the Italian architect Bartoloemo Rastrelli. The Empress Elizabeth herself laid the first stone on May 30, 1747. The paintings were made by craftsmen under the guidance of the court painter Elizabeth Ivan Vishnyakova. During the reign of the Romanov dynasty, it was the court church where the weddings and baptisms of members of the Russian Imperial family took place. This included the christening of the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich, the only son of Emperor Nicholas II in 1904.