It used to be located close to the present-day Red Square, but in the early 16th century it was moved northeast to what is now Bolshaya Lubyanka Street.

The origin of the monastery's name comes from the fact that it was built on the spot where the muscovites and the ruling Prince had met the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir on August 26, 1395.

Only the Cathedral of the Meeting of the Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir (собор Сретения Владимирской иконы Богоматери) with a side chapel to the Nativity of John the Forerunner (built in 1679 by the order of tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich) survived to this day.

The cathedral was transferred to the authority of the Pskovo-Pechorsky Monastery in 1994, but nowadays it is a separate monastic establishment, with Patriarch Kirill as its archimandrite.

The 61-metre-high building, fittingly situated next door to the infamous Lubyanka Prison, was completed in early 2017, in time for the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution when attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church had begun.