The village of Svyatovo is located on the Nerl River, which flows into the Volga, 39 versts from the district town and 166 versts from the provincial capital. In the 17th century, the parish church was in the village of Falisovo, and the village of Svyatovo did not yet exist. According to the scribal books of 1628 and 1629, the village of Falisovo belonged to A. I. Zasetsky, and there was a wooden church of St. Basil of Caesarea there, without a clergy.

At the end of the 17th century, the chamberlain F. I. Zamytsky moved the church from Falisovo to the desolate Semenkova, where a new church was built in 1698, while the old one in Falisovo continued to exist. Descriptions of both churches from 1698 have been preserved in the archives of the patriarchal treasury office.

The new church was built 990 fathoms from the old one and was also consecrated in the name of St. Basil of Caesarea. The parish of the new church included 4 noble and 20 peasant households. Soon, a village called Svyatovo formed around this church. In 1782, with the blessing of Bishop Theophilact of Pereslavl, the construction of a stone temple began in Svyatovo, completed in 1794. The new temple was consecrated in honor of the Sign of the Most Holy Theotokos, and the chapel in the name of St. Basil the Great. A wooden carved canopy was arranged over the main altar. The church was well supplied with utensils, vestments, holy icons, and liturgical books. Among the icons, the Sign of the Most Holy Theotokos, St. Basil the Great, St. Martyr Paraskeva, and the Kazan Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" stand out, transferred from the old church. The church library preserved a Gospel from 1697, a printed synodicon with 35 illustrations, and several liturgical books donated by the landowner Zasetsky in the middle of the last century.

Church documents, including copies of metric books from 1788 and confession lists from 1803, have been preserved intact. According to the clergy's statute, there are a priest and a psalmist. Their income consists of: 8 rubles interest from a capital of 200 rubles, 65 rubles from land, 510 rubles from services and needs, and 50 rubles from bread collection, totaling about 635 rubles per year. The clergy's houses are located on church land and are their property.

The church has 1 dessiatina of homestead land and up to 35 dessiatinas of arable and hay land; a plan and boundary book exist only for 16 dessiatinas. The clergy independently owns the land. The parish includes the village of Svyatovo, the village of Falisovo, and the villages of Myasoyedovo, Ananyevo, Kamyshevo, and Gavrilkovo, where the clerical records list 626 men and 744 women, all Orthodox. A zemstvo public school operates in the village.