Originally, the church was consecrated in honor of Metropolitan Alexius and built of wood by 1690 near the southwest corner of the Annunciation Cathedral with funds from the patriarchal sacristan Joseph Bulgakov, who retired to the monastery.

The church had an octagonal shape, its only dome was covered with glazed tiles and topped with a gilded wrought-iron cross. The window frames were made in the style of Russian Baroque of the late 17th century. The church had a single-apse altar, and the western porch was wooden.

In the 1820s, architect I. E. Efimov replaced the wooden porch with a stone one, which occupied the entire width of the cathedral's gallery. After a new church in honor of Metropolitan Alexius was built in the monastery in the mid-19th century, the church was reconsecrated in memory of Sergius of Radonezh, who visited Nizhny Novgorod in the 14th century, and became known as the Sergiev Church.