She served with the Black Sea Fleet and was flagship of the forces pursuing the mutinous battleship Potemkin in June 1905.

Tri Sviatitelia's design was based on an enlarged version of the Baltic Fleet battleship Navarin with some improvements in armour and armament.

[3] The ships had a pair of three-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines built by the British firm of Humphreys & Tennant that had a total designed output of 10,600 indicated horsepower (7,900 kW).

[4] Steam was provided to the engines by 14 cylindrical fire-tube boilers at a pressure of 128 psi (883 kPa; 9 kgf/cm2), which drove pair of four-bladed screw propellers.

On sea trials, the powerplant produced a total of 11,308 ihp (8,432 kW) and a top speed of 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph).

She carried a maximum of 1,000 long tons (1,000 t) of coal at full load that provided a range of 2,250 nautical miles (4,170 km; 2,590 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Tri Sviatitelia had three dynamos with a total output of 305 kW, but these were too small and could not supply enough power to work all the electrical equipment simultaneously.

[5] Her main armament consisted of four 40-calibre 12-inch (305 mm) Obukhov Model 1895 guns mounted in hydraulically powered twin-gun turrets fore and aft.

These modifications had the effect of reducing her displacement by almost 100 long tons (102 t) and she was capable of 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) on her post-reconstruction sea trials.

[16] In 1899 Tri Sviatitelia became the first ship in the world to be fitted with a radio, an installation designed by the Russian physicist Alexander Stepanovich Popov that had a range of about 3 miles (4.8 km).

[17] The ship was flagship of Rear Admiral F. F. Vishnevetskii during the failed attempt to recapture the mutinous battleship Potemkin on 30 June 1905.

[19] Tri Sviatitelia, accompanied by the pre-dreadnoughts Evstafi (flagship), Ioann Zlatoust, Panteleimon (the former Potemkin), Rostislav, bombarded Trebizond on the morning of 17 November 1914 and was intercepted by the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim and the light cruiser Midilli the following day on their return voyage to Sevastopol in what came to be known as the Battle of Cape Sarych.

However the Tri Sviatitelia used Ioann Zlatoust's inaccurate range data and failed to register any hits on the Ottoman ship.

[20] Tri Sviatitelia and Rostislav bombarded Ottoman fortifications at the mouth of the Bosphorus on 18 March 1915, but only fired 105 rounds before sailing north to rejoin the covering force.

[21] Tri Sviatitelia and Rostislav were to have repeated the bombardment the following day, but heavy fog prevented the operation.

[21] On 9 May 1915, Tri Sviatitelia and Panteleimon returned to bombard the Bosphorus forts, covered by the remaining pre-dreadnoughts.

Tri Sviatitelia and Pantelimon rejoined their consorts and the latter scored two hits on Yavuz before she broke off the action.

The British wrecked her engines on 24 April 1919 when they left the Crimea to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using her against the White Russians.