Soon after the construction of St. Petersburg began, a small wooden church of St. Nicholas was installed in a swampy area on the banks of the Malaya Neva, in the common people called Mokrusha. In 1713, a mazanok church was erected in its place, consecrated six years later, and Emperor Peter I himself attended the consecration ceremony. cathedral status.

At the beginning of the XVIII century, the church was already in need of restoration, and by order of Anna Ioannovna, architect M. Zemtsov began the construction of a stone temple. The construction of the church lasted for thirty years. Initially, it was assumed that the church building would be one-domed, but later the project was changed and a five-domed church was built, as the ancient Russian custom dictates.

When the construction work was almost completed, a major fire significantly damaged the new building. As a result, the church was completed in the year of the 800th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus and consecrated in honor of Prince Vladimir. In 1845, Emperor Nicholas I issued a decree according to which the Prince Vladimir Cathedral became the temple of the Knights of the Order of St. Vladimir established by Catherine II. The Order's badge was placed above the main entrance to the cathedral.

The Prince Vladimir Cathedral impresses with its beauty and rigor. The style of the building belongs to the era of transition from baroque to classicism. The interior decoration of the temple is very restrained, with almost complete absence of painting. The only decoration of the temple is the images of four Evangelists, presumably by K. Bryullov. The walls are also decorated with pilasters and oval windows.

Until 1917, the Prince Vladimir Cathedral housed an orphanage and a charity society. In 1926, services ceased in the church, but resumed again the following year. After the revolution, icons from closing churches were brought to the temple. In 1935, a copy of the icon of the Assumption of the Mother of God, the shrine of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, was delivered here. In 1940, the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was transported to Knyaz-Vladimirsky, and in 2001 it was returned to its original place — to the Kazan Cathedral. During the Great Patriotic War and the siege of Leningrad, services were held in the cathedral, which were attended by many Leningraders. A year after the end of the war, the bell ringing was restored, and a large bell was cast in Finland.

In 2015, the cathedral's roof and domes of the cathedral's facades were restored. The update was timed to coincide with the 1000th anniversary of the death of Prince Vladimir. During the restoration, the cathedral's crosses were restored for the first time since the construction of the church