The church was built at the end of the tenth century, and is located on the territory of modern Karachay-Cherkessia Republic, Russia.

The church is located 7 km to the north from the city of Karachayevsk (Russian: Карачаевск), above the Ossetian Kosta Khetagurov village [ru].

The rest of the building is composed of sandstone-with-lime blocks of rough processing, with a butoconcrete filling inside the wall.

The slope, on which the church is located, was previously densely populated, as evidenced by the remains of numerous ancient buildings.

In 2007 residents of the Kosta Khetagurov village made an unauthorized repair of the church after a series of appeals to the government of the Karachay-Cherkessia Republic.

There are also Greek, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Russian inscriptions of various eras and numerous North Caucasian ancestral signs - tamga.

On April 30, 2011, unknown people set the temple on fire, but it was quickly eliminated, and the interior and icons were not damaged.

[4] On February 16, 2016 in Russia a silver commemorative coin dedicated to Shoana Church was released.