Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli designed the convent for Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great. He built the cathedral between 1748 and 1764, and the article's account conflicts with that end date. Funding ran out after Catherine II took the throne, and she disapproved of the Baroque style. Vasily Stasov finished the building in 1835, adding the neoclassical interior, and it was consecrated on July 22, 1835.
The cathedral is blue and white, in Baroque style. A bell tower that would have been the tallest building in Saint Petersburg and in Russia was planned but never built. The article gives no dimensions or materials.
Soviet authorities closed the church in 1923 and looted it, and it decayed until 1982, when it became a concert hall. It returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in April 2015, and the Divine Liturgy is held daily. Surrounding buildings house faculties of Saint Petersburg State University.
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