The largest Catholic church in Russia was originally conceived as a branch of another church, which is no longer in operation.

In the late 19th century, the center for Moscow's Catholics was Milutin Street, where two churches were located: St. Louis, mainly attended by French, Italians, and Spaniards, and St. Peter and Paul, where the congregation consisted of Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, and other immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. Over time, the second church became cramped, and the Polish part of the congregation proposed building a third church as a branch. In 1894, a petition was submitted to the Governor-General of Moscow. The authorities granted permission but with conditions: the new church had to be built away from the center of Moscow, far from Orthodox churches, without towers and sculptures. Ultimately, Maly Gruzinsky Street was chosen, likely due to its proximity to Brest Station (now Belarusian), which connected Moscow with the western provinces.

Construction of the church began in 1901 and was mostly completed by 1911, when the church was consecrated. Interior finishing continued until the revolution. The condition regarding the absence of sculptures and towers was partially fulfilled: the project by Polish architect F.O. Bogdanovich-Dvorzhetsky, who had previously built a Catholic church in Samara, was executed in the neo-Gothic style and included small decorative spires and a lantern in the transept topped with a spire and cross. Elongated pointed windows were complemented by a large rose window above the main entrance. The cross-shaped building could accommodate up to 5,000 people. In 1911, the church was surrounded by a fence designed by L.F. Daukshem in the same neo-Gothic style.

After the revolution, the church became an independent parish, but in 1938, services ceased, the interiors were almost completely destroyed, and the building was used as a dormitory. During German bombings, the building was damaged by several shells. After the war, the church lost its remaining spires and other decorative elements of the facades, and its interior space was divided into four floors, where in the 1950s the Research Institute 'Mosspecpromproekt' was located. During the Soviet era, the Polish embassy was located on the neighboring Klimashkin Street.

In 1990, the Polish Catholic parish of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was established, which began the struggle to return the building to the faithful. Initially, masses were held on the steps of the cathedral, and entry into the building was only possible in 1996. The building, having lost its church appearance and not being repaired for a long time, urgently needed restoration, which was carried out over three years. Today, the church looks as F.O. Bogdanovich-Dvorzhetsky envisioned it in the early 20th century.