The building it occupies was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1891 for the CongregationalKing's Weigh House congregation. The church is of red brick with buff terracotta dressings. It has an oval nave and a tower in the south-west corner, built in a Romanesque style.[3]
The Congregational church sold it to the Ukrainian Catholics in 1967, to be the new headquarters of the local apostolic exarchate created in 1957 by Pope Pius XII. Internal adjustments were then made to adapt the building to Catholic liturgy. It includes an east window with glass by Robert Anning Bell and a confessional by J. F. Bentley from Westminster Cathedral. Waterhouse's building was Grade II* listed in 1970.[4]
The cathedral was closed temporarily in 2007 when part of the ceiling collapsed, but has since been refurbished.[5] The iconostasis created by a Ukrainian monk, Juvenalij Mokrytsky, was not affected by the ceiling's collapse.[6]
On 18 January 2013 the exarchate was elevated to the rank of an eparchy (full bishopric) by Pope Benedict XVI.[7]
The cathedral became a rallying point for the British Ukrainian community during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The cathedral hosted addresses by political as well as religious figures, including the office of the Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Ukraine, both invited by Bishop Kenneth Nowakowski.[8]
