Lapshanga is a village in the Varnaninsky district, mentioned in N.V. Morokhin's "Nizhny Novgorod Toponymic Dictionary." It has two names: one derives from the Lapshanga River, a right tributary of the Vetluga, near the mouth of which is a Mari name meaning "beetle" according to Truba; the second is associated with the church consecrated in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, and is called Nikolskoye. The village has been known since the early 17th century.

According to the "State Lists of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Nizhny Novgorod Region," there is an architectural monument in the village of Nikolskoye, a church dated to the 19th century. According to Sergey Legchenkova, during the Soviet era, a House of Culture was built on the site and from the materials of the Nikolskaya church, which burned down on April 25, 2009, due to a short circuit in the wiring.

In May 2009, an initiative group was formed to restore the temple complex in Lapshanga. In June, with the blessing of Archbishop Georgiy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas, a cross was erected and consecrated at the construction site, and a project for the spatial solution of the complex was developed. It will include a church, a chapel in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, a memorial stele in memory of the victims of political repressions, a rectory, a children's playground, a cross, a gazebo, and a necropolis for the burial of remains found during construction work at the Nikolsk-Lapshanga hill.