The archbishop's courtyard of the church in honor of the holy equal-to-the-apostles Cyril and Methodius was consecrated on May 23, 2015, by Metropolitan Georgy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas. This event took place on the eve of the celebration of their memory and the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture, which is observed on May 24.

Before the 1917 revolution, the building with the house church on Gruzinskaya Street belonged to the brotherhood of the holy equal-to-the-apostles Cyril and Methodius. It housed a dormitory for poor students of the provincial gymnasium.

The foundation of the dormitory with the church was laid in 1894, and the construction was funded by the Rukavishnikov merchants. The church was consecrated on February 2, 1897, by Bishop Vladimir II Nikolsky of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas.

Every year on May 24, the day of the memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius, readings dedicated to the deeds of the Thessalonian brothers were held in the church.

During the Soviet era, starting from the end of 1939, the building of the brotherhood housed an institute of microbiology. The church space was divided into two parts by an inter-floor partition. Under the dome was the scientific library of the institute, while the lower part was equipped as a laboratory.

During the Great Patriotic War, the institute played an important role in providing vaccines for the Red Army and the civilian population of the USSR. Vaccines produced in the church's prayer room saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

In April 2013, the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology moved to a new building on Malaya Yamskaya Street. After that, restoration work on the church began.