The Peter and Paul Church became the first cemetery church in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1763, when the Commission for Stone Construction of St. Petersburg and Moscow began regular restructuring of Russian cities, it faced serious difficulties due to cemeteries near parish churches. The laying of streets through these areas caused discontent among residents.

In 1775, in Nizhny Novgorod, half a verst from the Varvarskaya gate, a free space was allocated for a citywide cemetery, where a chapel was established and a fence was erected.

By 1781, according to the project of the first provincial architect Yakov Ananyin, the building of the Peter and Paul Church was erected, but the main altar in honor of Peter and Paul was consecrated only in 1785.

In the 1960s, during the Soviet era, the church building housed the 'Pioneer' cinema.

In the 1990s, the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Nizhny Novgorod was returned to the believers.

The church building is column-free, with a baroque light octagon on a square base, a refectory, and a three-tiered tent bell tower above the western entrance, designed in the shape of a ship. The bell tower was destroyed during the Soviet era, and in 2014 a new two-tiered bell tower with a dome-shaped roof was built in its place. The baroque window frames are carved from brick. The church is the only surviving monument of Russian baroque from the second half of the 18th century in Nizhny Novgorod.