In 1552, Ivan the Terrible set out on a campaign against Kazan and reached the Ushna River on July 13. In his army was the voivode Butylin Butylitsa, who defeated the Tatar army here. A cross was erected at this site with the inscription: "Here was the voivode Butylitsa." Upon returning to Moscow, Ivan resettled the Novgorodians on the banks of the Ushna, six versts southwest of this place, founding the village of Butylitsy and the village of Maksimovo.

The peasants of Butylitsy were engaged in the production of bottles, which they supplied to the Court, and there was a warehouse for bottles in the village. In honor of the voivode Butylin and due to the craft of the peasants, the sovereign named the village Butylitsy.

Later, a miraculous icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker appeared in Butylitsy. According to one version, it appeared in Maksimovo, but the Butylitsy peasants brought it to their village, claiming that it appeared to them. The Maksimovo peasants dispute this version.

At the site of the icon's discovery in Butylitsy, Ivan the Terrible founded the Nikolsky Murom Men's Monastery, also known as the Nikol Butylitsy Men's Desert. The monastery is first mentioned in 1566. After the suppression of the Stenka Razin uprising in 1671, a group of rebels was exiled here for penance, founding a settlement on the opposite bank of the Ushna. They had a negative influence on the local peasants. The settlement burned down in 1889, and its residents moved to the village.

Before the revolution, the cemetery was located by the church, and the cross on the bell tower and the dome were mirrored. After the revolution, the church was closed, and the miraculous icon disappeared. It was large.

Butylitsy and Maksimovo are located in the Melekhovo District of the Vladimir Region.

The church reopened on Holy Saturday, April 1, 1990.