The Korniliye-Paleostrovsky Men's Monastery was founded in the early 15th century by St. Korniliy. After receiving a blessing for missionary work among pagans, he settled on Pale Island in Lake Onega and established a monastery there.

The Paleostrov Monastery, known for its strict monastic rule, attracted attention. The main relics of the monastery were the remains of St. Korniliy and St. Avraamy of Paleostrov, which are still kept underground. The chains of its founder were also preserved in the monastery, which were taken by schismatics who captured the monastery twice in the late 17th century. Mass self-immolations of schismatics occurred in this monastery, resulting in the deaths of the captured abbot Tikhon and the brethren.

The monastery was restored only by the beginning of the 19th century. Its ensemble included a stone church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a two-story building with a domestic church dedicated to St. Ephraim the Syrian, and a two-story guesthouse. From the side of the lake, the monastery was surrounded by a fence made of wild stone.

After the establishment of Soviet power, the monastery was closed, and its lands were distributed among a collective farm, local residents, and the brethren. Almost nothing remained of the ancient monastery except for the walls of the brotherly building and the ruins of the white-stone church.

The monastery was reopened by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on March 7, 2000. Thanks to the efforts of several monks under the guidance of Abbot Ioann Zyuzin, the monastery is gradually being restored. A wooden church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, several cells, a building for the residence of the abbot with a library, a brotherly building, a guesthouse for pilgrims, and a diesel station have been constructed. The refectory building with a bakery has been restored. The brethren intend to restore the destroyed stone brotherly building.

In 2011, the Paleostrov Monastery opened a dependency in Petrozavodsk, and two years later, a church in honor of the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary "Znamenie" was built on its territory. The wooden tent church, 18 meters high, was erected in a year with the funds of benefactors. The iconostasis was made in Saratov, the icon cases were created by Petrozavodsk craftsmen, and the icons themselves were painted by iconographers from Petrozavodsk and Montenegro. The dependency is located in Petrozavodsk at Vitegorodskoye Highway, house 4.