The village of Antushkovo was previously known as Nikolsky Pogost. On June 11, 1423, local shepherds witnessed the appearance of the Life-Giving Cross, before which stood Nicholas the Wonderworker. Before this event, there was a large swamp at the site of the pogost, known as Sakhotskoye, which miraculously dried up overnight, freeing space for the construction of a church. In memory of this miraculous appearance, the new church was consecrated in honor of Nicholas the Wonderworker, with an altar dedicated to the origin of the honorable tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. The church was built of oak and stood for many years, but then burned down in a fire. That same year, it was restored in wood. In 1776, a stone church with three altars was built and consecrated on the site of the dilapidated wooden church: the main altar in honor of the Elevation of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, and altars in the name of Saint Nicholas and in honor of the Protection of the Mother of God.

In 1824, it was decided to build a monastery around the temple at Nikolsky Pogost so that services at the shrine of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord could be held daily, which was previously impossible due to the small number of parishioners. A small brick factory and a monastic building were constructed for this purpose, but work stopped for unknown reasons. Later, the monastic building was repurposed as a zemstvo public school. In the early 19th century, the parish of the Nikolsky Pogost church included thirteen villages with a population of about 1500 people. The Cross Elevation Church operated until 1927, when it was looted, and its rector, Father Ioann Dobrotin, was arrested and exiled to a camp in Komi, where he died on November 25, 1931. A proletarian 'Red Commune' formed at Nikolsky Pogost, and the monastic building became a dormitory for communards and Ivanovo workers. During this time, it was decided to transfer the Shrine to the Church of John Chrysostom in the village of Godenovo, which operated until 1929, when it was closed but not looted. The exact date of the transfer of the Cross is unknown, but it is most likely that it occurred in 1933.

According to local residents, in that year all participants of the procession were dispossessed and exiled. The Cross was carried at night 'by the entire collective farm' led by chairman Vasily Fomin. The Cross stood in the abandoned Godenovo church throughout the war and faced various trials from the new authorities, but endured, suffering only minor damage and scratches. In the godless years, Nikolsky Pogost was completely devastated. After the communal dormitory, a children's home was located there, but in the 1950s, a severe fire destroyed many village houses and livestock, yet the church remained intact. In the 1960s, a machine-tractor station was organized near the vacant Nikolsky Pogost, for the construction of which the arches and walls of the Cross Elevation Church were dismantled. However, the station never became operational, and the holy site became deserted. Nikolsky Pogost, after five hundred years of history, once again turned into the Sakhotskoye swamp, but not for long. In the mid-1990s, at the initiative of Igumen Boris Kramtsov, a men's monastery was established at the site of the appearance of the Life-Giving Cross in honor of the Descent of the Cross of the Lord. In 2004, the Cross Elevation Church was almost completely restored, and a small wooden Nikolskaya church was built.