The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 kilometres (43 mi) to the northeast from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.

The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill.

St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380).

The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes.

In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.

In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km (0.93 mi) long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610.

The refectory of St. Sergius,[4] covering 510 square metres (5,500 sq ft) and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia.

Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.

Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra.

Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower,[6] which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date.

In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.

In May 1923 Charles Ashleigh reported how the hall was used to demonstrate the new radio technology before a mixed audience primarily composed of peasants and soldiers, but with some townspeople.