According to legend, the site where the Nikolsky temple now stands on Selivanova Mountain was first visited by St. Sergius of Radonezh. However, the first written mention of the church appears only in the 1562 Census Books. They state that on Selivanova Mountain, in addition to the monastery courtyard, there were 22 peasant households and 20 cells where elders and the poor lived. At that time, there was a wooden church, which in 1764 was replaced by a stone temple with a bell tower and two chapels in honor of St. Nicholas and St. Sergius of Radonezh, funded by the Moscow merchant Tit Petrov. In the late 19th century, after the dining room was expanded, a chapel in honor of the Protection of the Holy Virgin was consecrated.

Among the icons, the Joasaph Icon of the Mother of God was especially venerated, which, according to some sources, was a copy of an image belonging either to Patriarch Joasaph I or to Metropolitan Joasaph. The church was surrounded by a fence, and since 1851, a cemetery was located nearby. The church particularly remembers the elder Mikhail Pozdnyakov, who worked on its arrangement for almost two decades starting in 1866. Under him, the bell tower was rebuilt, a new 300-pood bell was cast, cast iron flooring was laid in the dining room, and the walls and dome were painted, along with a new iconostasis being installed. After the revolution, the church, like many others across Russia, was closed and used as a machine-tractor station, and later as a motor transport enterprise.

In 1993, the first service was held in the church, and its restoration began. On September 30, 2000, the chapel of St. Sergius was consecrated, and on October 13, 2001, the chapel of the Protection of the Mother of God. On October 26, 2007, thanks to donations from Moscow benefactor A. V. Chervyakov, bells weighing a total of 420 kilograms were installed on the bell tower, and by the blessing of Bishop Evlogy Smirnov of Vladimir and Suzdal, the church was granted the status of a cathedral. Through the efforts of another benefactor from the North Caucasus, E. I. Delyukin, a gilded chandelier weighing 650 kilograms, 2.9 meters tall and 2.5 meters in diameter, was placed in the Nicholas chapel. Moscow benefactor I. I. Saprykin financed the creation of a new gilded iconostasis.

The Holy Nicholas Cathedral is a typical "ship" type church. It is a brick church with a two-light single-domed square, modest decor, a wide dining room with Sergius and Protection chapels, and a tall bell tower in the Russian-Byzantine style. Several years ago, a new copper dome with a cross was placed on the destroyed bell tower, assembled in the churchyard and expertly installed by helicopter pilots from the Kirzhach branch of the parachute construction institute. Recently, new brick Holy Gates were built.