The Ryazan Kremlin was founded in the 16th century on a hill at the confluence of the Lybed and Trubezh rivers. According to local legend, the miraculous icon of the Kazan Mother of God was revealed here. In 1786, the monastery was moved to the Ascension Church in Ryazan at the entrance from the Vladimir tract, on the modern Zatinnaya Street, where it is located today. In 1861, under the abbess Catherine, a community and a hospital for the care of elderly and infirm sisters were established in the monastery. From 1863, the abbess was Evgenia, who revitalized the monastery. In 1868, with funds from banker Sergey Afanasyevich Zhivago, a four-grade school for girls was opened at the monastery. On the site of the old Ascension Church, with funds from Moscow merchant Nikanor Petrovich Suvorov and other benefactors, a new cathedral was built in honor of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, with chapels dedicated to the holy martyr Charalampius and Sergius of Radonezh. On August 16, 1870, Archbishop Alexy Rzhanytsyn consecrated the cathedral. In the same year, a gate church in honor of the great martyr Barbara with a bell tower was built. In 1872, the monastery received the status of a first-class monastery. Its territory included 40 buildings, including a library, bakery, and candle factory. There was a cemetery on the grounds where nuns and notable citizens were buried. The monastery was surrounded by a stone fence with two gates. Outside the monastery, there were a hotel and a garden covering 2.5 hectares. By 1917, about 400 residents lived in the monastery.

After the 1917 revolution, the monastery began to be plundered, and in 1919 it was finally closed, the nuns were expelled, and valuables were requisitioned. The territory with the stone fence was used by the Bolsheviks to create a concentration camp. Some buildings were occupied by the camp commandant and guards. On February 20, 1923, the camp was disbanded, and a Red Army club was established in the Kazan Church, with the frescoes painted over. Later, it became a home for orphans and a sewing production facility. Most of the walls and towers were dismantled, with only the tower and part of the wall at the corner of Zatinnaya and Ascension streets remaining. Some rooms became residential apartments, some were rebuilt and privatized, while others were abandoned. The monastery necropolis, where notable Ryazan residents were buried, was almost completely destroyed. In 1924, the Kazan Cathedral housed an archive.

On December 16, 2005, the building of the Kazan Cathedral was transferred to the Ryazan Diocese. On November 4, 2006, the first service was held in the cathedral before the icon of the Kazan Mother of God. In October 2007, the Ryazan Diocesan Women's Spiritual School was opened at the monastery, transformed from the School of Cantors and Psalmists. On June 23, 2008, nun Anna Syuchugova became the abbess of the monastery. Surviving tombstones were collected at the site of the former necropolis, and a cross was erected in 2010. In 2019, a monument to Mikhail Mikhailovich Gaidukov and several unknown tombstones were returned to the necropolis.