Accurate information about the Elijah Church dates back to no earlier than 1626. It is mentioned as the 'church behind the smithies' because there was a row of blacksmiths nearby in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to a description from 1626, the church was located 'behind the fortress, in the old fortress' and was wooden, of the cell type. Next to it stood fortress gates, the tower of which still existed in the early 18th century.

During the fire of 1622, the church likely burned down, and according to legend, only the temple icon of Saint Elijah the Prophet, the icon of the martyr Conon, and two icons of the Mother of God, Tolga and Bogolyubskaya, were saved.

In the first quarter of the 18th century, a wooden floor was added. The bell tower was erected in the second half of the 18th century. According to a description from 1685, the Elijah Church was built of stone and was likely completed by 1687. It was single-story, and the upper wooden floor was supposedly added in the first quarter of the 18th century. The bell tower was built in the second half of the 18th century. During the famous fire of 1754, known as the 'Odigitrievsky' fire, the Elijah Church burned first, as the fire started 'near the Church of Elijah the Prophet, at the old blacksmith row, not far from the red rows and the tavern near the Elijah Church, at the tile maker Kushinnikov's, in Zhorin Lane.'

The church suffered from the fire of 1754 and was completely rebuilt by 1759 with the funds of merchant Karasev into a two-story, single-domed church with a three-part apse, a semi-open northern gallery, a small refectory, a two-tiered four-sided bell tower, and a Kazan altar on the upper floor. The second chapel, in the name of the icon 'The Seeking of the Lost,' was arranged on the lower floor in 1861 through the efforts of the Chistokletov family.

The length of the church with the bell tower was 14 fathoms, the width was 4 fathoms and 1 arshin. Along the northern wall of the temple stretched an open gallery on the sides, the roof of which was supported by four columns with Ionic-style capitals; the columns were connected at the bottom by three arches, under the middle of which was a chapel. The temple had the shape of a quadrangular square with three windows on each side; the roof was made in the form of a round tent with a round drum and a pear-shaped dome decorated with stars. The altar was three-apsed, with weakly expressed apses.

The bell tower was quadrangular, two-tiered, made in the 'Italian' style. Above the through spans of the second tier were kokoshniks, in the center of which were round through windows, voice openings decorated with images painted on tin. Above the roof of the bell tower rose an elongated tribune with a dome.

The walls of the temple in the gallery were painted with scenes from the lives of saints; one of the paintings depicted a procession around the Moscow Kremlin. On the eastern side of the church, a stone fence with wooden grilles was arranged in 1847.

The church was closed in the 1930s and converted into a dormitory. During the war, it was damaged by a shell, and in the 1950s it was dismantled. A three-story building of a workshop was built on the site of the church, which is currently occupied by a bank.