The Visitation church building the was built for funeral services at the St. Petersburg Catholic cemetery opened in 1856. The founder of the church was Nikolai Leontyevich Benois, an architect and a member of the Roman Catholic community. A Polish parish was located in the church. Subsequently, there were an orphanage, a shelter for poor and sick women, and a school, which became a gymnasium. The latter was headed by nun Boleslava Lament, canonized in 1991.

The building has eclectic shapes. Benoit originally designed a chapel, but in 1877 the Polish parish ordered its reconstruction. An octagonal bell tower with a ringing tier, a clock and a high cone-shaped tent with a Catholic cross was added to the basilica-type chapel. Benoit planned a vaulted basement-crypt under the church. This famous architect is buried in this crypt, which became the Benoit family crypt.

The church functioned until 1938, the cemetery was abolished a year later. After the war, the church served first as a potato storage facility, then as an industrial laboratory, and most of the cemetery around the church was occupied by an industrial area.

In 2002, the building, in urgent need of restoration, was returned to the Catholic Church. The restoration activities were started in the beginning of the 21st century and are not finished yet.