The convent was founded in 1909 by Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna after the death of her husband to assist sick, wounded, and maimed soldiers in their recovery, and to provide for the needs of the poor and orphans. Aleksey Shchusev designed the Church of the Intersession as Art Nouveau renderings of a medieval Novgorod architectural type. The cathedral's snow-white walls are adorned with carved crosses by Sergey Konenkov. The interior contains frescoes and mosaics by Mikhail Nesterov and Pavel Korin. In the convent, there is a museum devoted its history and the life and death of Elizabeth Feodorovna and her husband.