Competed in 1783 the Catholic Church of Saint Catherine had three designers. The original was Domenico Trezzini who designed the St Peter & Paul Cathedral. He died however before the church was completed and his designs were scrapped. a new design was drawn up by architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe. He returned to his native France in 1775 and work was completed by Italian architect, Antonio Rinaldi.

In an all too familiar story in St Petersburg, the Leader of the church, Konstantin Budkevich, was shot to death and church was ransacked by the Soviets. It was then nearly destroyed by fire in 1947. It then spent nearly 30 years as a warehouse. It seems that the large open spaces peculiar to church architecture are what saved many of them. In 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the decision was made to restore the church and return it to it's original function. By this time is had survived yet another fire and had become apartments and office space. One story goes that a young woman had salvaged the crucifix from the ransacked remains of the church in 1938 and returned the crucifix to the church's altar in 1992 when the church was reopened. Restoration was completed in 2000.