The monastery is located in Ein Karem, about 7 km southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem.

In 1869, Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin), who headed the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem, decided to acquire a plot with two houses and an olive grove 7 km from the Old City. This site is near the village of Ein Karem, which is believed to be the birthplace of John the Baptist and the meeting place of the Virgin Mary with the righteous Elizabeth. The owner of the plot, the former dragoman of the French consulate in Jerusalem, Hanna Jellad, requested 4000 napoleons (about 25,000 rubles in silver) for it. A special committee was established in Russia to raise this amount.

After purchasing the plot in 1871, nuns and pilgrims settled there. The first church of the monastery was consecrated on February 14, 1883, in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and became the main temple of the monastery, where the miraculous Kazan Icon of the Mother of God is kept. To the right of the entrance to the Kazan church is a stone on which, according to tradition, John the Baptist preached. This stone was brought from the vicinity of Jerusalem, near the 'desert' of John the Baptist, close to the modern settlement of Even Sapir.

In 1898, the community of nuns received the status of a monastery from the Holy Synod, and in 1903, icon-painting and gold embroidery workshops were opened here, which provided the monastery with means of existence.

In 1910, the construction of a cathedral began, which was planned to be consecrated in honor of the Holy Trinity, but the work was interrupted due to the onset of World War I.

By 1914, about 200 nuns lived in the monastery, who were forced to leave the monastery and move to Alexandria at the request of the Ottoman authorities. In 1918, they returned to the already damaged monastery, which was restored by their efforts.

Since 1920, due to the lack of communication with the Moscow Patriarchate, the monastery and the Russian Spiritual Mission came under the administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR). In 1924, the Gornensky community regained canonical status as a monastery.

Many nuns who came to the monastery during these years were Russian émigrés fleeing through Bessarabia and Serbia to the Holy Land. Only a few postulants were Arab.

In 1945, after the visit of Patriarch Alexy I to the Holy Land, a disagreement arose among the sisters regarding jurisdiction, and most supported the transition to the Moscow Patriarchate. The Jerusalem Patriarchate provided these sisters with a Greek church in Ein Karem. In July 1948, during Operation Nachshon, bombings began in Ein Karem, and the sisters fled to the Jordanian part of Palestine (the Mount of Olives Monastery).

After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the monastery and the buildings of the Russian Spiritual Mission were transferred by the Israeli authorities to the Soviet government (Moscow Patriarchate). Since the mid-1950s, the monastery became the only women's monastery of the Moscow Patriarchate outside the USSR.

In 1997, the construction of the cathedral in honor of the Holy Trinity resumed, completed in 2007 for the 160th anniversary of the monastery. On October 28, 2007, the church was consecrated with a minor rite in honor of All Saints who shone in the land of Russia, and on November 12, 2012, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow performed the great consecration of the church. About 60 sisters live in the monastery.