St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in Kyiv. It includes the Ukrainian (Mazepa) baroque cathedral church in honor of the Archangel Michael, destroyed in the 1930s and rebuilt in the mid-1990s, as well as a refectory with the Church of St. John the Evangelist (1713) and a bell tower (1716-1719). It is assumed that St. Michael's Cathedral was the first temple with a gilded top, from where this peculiar tradition went in Russia.

Tradition attributes the founding of the monastery to the first Metropolitan of Kiev, Mikhail. The first temple in honor of the Archangel Michael was ordered in 1108 by Prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavovich on the site of the Dmitrievsky Monastery, built presumably by his father, Izyaslav I (baptized Demetrius).
The Mikhailovsky Cathedral, built in 1108-1113, was of particular importance for the people of Kiev, because it was dedicated to the Archangel Michael, the heavenly patron of Kyiv. In the XII century the monastery was the burial place of princes. It is assumed that a monastery was established at the same time at the church. Since ancient times, the church has been called Golden-domed, probably because it was the only church at that time with a gilded top. By the time of Svyatopolk, tradition also relates the transfer to Kyiv from Constantinople in 1108 of the main shrine of the Golden-Domed Monastery, the relics of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara.
During the capture of Kyiv by Batu and during the attack on Kyiv by the Crimean Khan Mengl I Giray in 1482, the Golden-Domed Monastery was badly damaged. The kings of Poland give him letters of free choice of abbots and independence from governors and metropolitans. In the XVI century the monastery was one of the richest Kiev monasteries. In 1612, Sisigmund III gave the Golden-Domed Monastery to the Uniates, but the Uniates failed to actually take possession of either the monastery or even, apparently, the monastic estates. Perhaps the monastery owes this to the support of the Cossacks, thanks to whom in 1620 Mikhailov's abbot Job Boretsky was consecrated to the metropolitan. Job remained to live in the Golden-Domed Monastery, which for a time acquired the significance of a metropolitan residence.
With the annexation of Kyiv to the Muscovite state, the Golden-Domed Monastery lost most of its estates, which lay in the areas remaining behind the Commonwealth; on the other hand, both the hetmans and the Cossack foreman generously endowed the monastery with possessions in left-bank Ukraine. Much was acquired by the monastery of land and by purchase. In 1800, the Golden-Domed Monastery was appointed for the stay of the Bishops of Chigirinsky, vicars of the Kiev diocese. The ancient church of Svyatopolk is now the middle part of the main monastery church; altar apses, walls up to a certain height and the main dome survived from it; several ancient mosaic images have also been preserved, and in 1888 ancient frescoes were discovered.

In the 17th century, next to the male Golden-domed monastery, there was also the Golden-domed Mikhailovsky female monastery, transferred in 1712 to Podol. The Mikhailovsky Monastery owned a skete in Feofaniya, founded in the vicinity of Kyiv in 1861.
The dismantling and demolition of the cathedral was carried out in 1934-1936; The relics of the Great Martyr Varvara were transferred to the Vladimir Cathedral. In 1934-35, the surviving mosaics were removed to a new base and transferred to St. Sophia Cathedral (a group of restorers led by V. Frolov). For the Eucharist mosaic, a special wall was built in the exhibition hall of St. Sophia's Cathedral, the shape of which repeats the apse of St. Michael's Cathedral. Some frescoes were also removed and transferred to the museums of Leningrad (Hermitage), Moscow (Tretyakov Gallery and Kyiv (Sofievsky Cathedral).

Restored in 1997-1998, St. Michael's Cathedral (officially opened on May 30, 1999) is one of the main churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate. Since 2001, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation has been transferring the original fragments of the frescoes of St. Michael's Cathedral and other items kept in the Hermitage to the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. On July 15, 2008, the frescoes returned by Russia were exhibited.
On the adjacent territory there are Kiev theological schools of the UOC-KP. The bell tower of the monastery is equipped with a modern electric chime clock and a unique bell-keyboard musical instrument carillon, designed to perform complex melodies by a specially trained musician.