The exact time of the establishment of the celebration of the Nativity of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Russia is unknown. Direct evidence of the celebration of the Nativity of the Saint in Novgorod dates back to the 16th century. The Official of St. Sophia Cathedral records that the celebration was accompanied by a procession "from St. Sophia to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on the Rosary." In 1556, a monastery dedicated to the Nativity of the Saint was founded in Novgorod, as the chronicle says, the monastery on the Rozvazhi Street of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker's Birth.
The manuscript with the service of the Nativity of St. St. Nicholas was written in Veliky Novgorod in the summer of 7165 [1657]. Further, the trail of this service leads deep into Russia, including the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. It was in the Lavra library that another list of this Nativity service was discovered. Nicholas. It is dated 1723.
During the reign of Empress Catherine the Great, the church-wide celebration of the Nativity of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Russia was abolished, perhaps because it was absent from the calendar of other Local Orthodox Churches of that time.
In 2004, Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia gave his blessing, at the request of the church superiors and parishioners, to resume the celebration of the Nativity of the Saint.