Nevelsk is the administrative center of the Nevelsky municipal district of the Sakhalin region and is part of the South Sakhalin and Kuril diocese. It is located in the southwest of Sakhalin Island, on the shore of the Tatar Strait of the Sea of Japan. The first Russians settled in the area of modern Nevelsk in 1789, soon joined by Japanese colonists. The settlement, known as Honto ('little lake'), was under joint Russian-Japanese administration. Soviet troops occupied the city on August 24, 1945, and it again became part of Russia, then within the USSR. In 1946, the city was named Nevelsk in honor of Admiral G.I. Nevelskoy, an explorer of the Far East.

On October 23, 1995, the ceremonial laying of the church took place. The main initiators of the construction, along with the parish priest Father Alexey Volosatykh, were the mayor of the city Ivan Petrovich Malakhov, who later became the governor of the Sakhalin region, and the head of the Fishery Inspection Arthur Zatulyaikin, baptized as Anatoly.

The church project was commissioned to Sakhalin architect Michenko, who is also the author of the Resurrection Cathedral in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The church was consecrated on August 9, 1998, by Bishop Ionafan of South Sakhalin and the Kurils in the presence of the late governor of the Sakhalin region I.P. Farhutdinov. In 2001, the church was adorned with a valuable iconostasis created by Moscow artists Dmitry and Galina Larionov using ancient techniques.

Sunday school classes are held in the parish building.