Novospassky Monastery was founded in 1490 by Grand Prince Ivan III under the name of Spas Novy, when he relocated monks from the Kremlin's Spassky Monastery on the Bor.

With the rise of the Romanov dynasty, the monastery received royal support and began to take on its modern appearance, as it served as the family burial site for this dynasty.

In 1646 and 1649, the future Patriarch Nikon was the archimandrite of the monastery.

In the crypt of the Spaso-Transfiguration Cathedral, the boyars Zakhariny-Koshkin, ancestors of the Romanovs, as well as their relatives: the princes Sitsky, Cherkassky, Yaroslavsky, Obolensky, Troekurov, Trubetskoy, Naryshkin, and other representatives of the pre-Petrine nobility are buried.

On September 4/17, 1995, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, the remains of Grand Prince Sergei Alexandrovich, who was killed on February 4/17, 1905, were solemnly transferred from the Kremlin to the monastery.

A monument dedicated to the four-hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty's ascension to the throne is also located on the monastery grounds.

The monastery was closed in 1918, and that same year a concentration camp was organized on its territory. From 1935, the monastery was managed by the economic administration of the NKVD.