In 1060, Prince Svyatoslav with his faithful wife came to Yeletsky Hill for hunting. On one of the tall fir trees he saw an icon of Blessed Virgin Mary and because of that fact themonastery was built there. Yeletsky means“spruce” as it derived from the word "el" which means“a fir tree”.
In the 1990s on the southern side of the cathedral a burial vault of Chernihiv colonel Jacob Lizogub was added. In 1670 - 1675, a four-tiered bell tower with the height of 36 meters was erected and on the order of monastery the 160 kg in weight bell was made. There is a legend which is connected with the bell, when Polish army decided to devastate Chernihiv, the army could not move the bell from its place. In the ancient times the Bell Tower was used as the defensive gates of the city, it was named Solemn.
There was a library of Prince Svyatoslav Yaroslavich in the cathedral, it is one of the first known libraries of Kievan Rus. There were a lot of books not only of religious contents. To the present days the Miscellany of Svyatoslav dating from 1073, 1076 was preserved there. It is interesting that, according to the universal of D. Manygrishny, the Yeletsky Monastery had its own transportation through the Desna, archive, 7 bakeries, 8 pot-house, 4 baths, 9 mills, gardens, groves and lakes. Moreover, the oldest building in the Left-bank Ukraine is located on the territory of the monastery. A monument of wooden residential architecture was erected in 1688 for St. Theodosius.
The Yeletsky Monastery hides many undiscovered legends. For example, there is a legend about Chernihiv Dracula. After Dunin-Borkovsky was buried in the cathedral, strange deaths occurred, people were found almost without a drop of blood. People saw a carriage leaving the monastery gate at midnight, and it drove to the Count's family castle. There count travelled around his lands and gave orders to his dead servants .After the rumor and sight of the carriage people opened the coffin and discovered that the count looked like alive, so people decided to drive a stake into his heart. After that deed attacks and disappearances stopped. It is interesting that in Yeletsky Monastery all the creepy scenes of Vij were supposed to be filmed, but filming crew could not reproduce everything. Despite the fact that the shooting took place in the monastery the bad curse passed over the place.
On the territory of the monastery the prince always existed, the court of legendary prince Chorny. On territory of the northern part of the monastery the tumulus is located; in addition the territorial interior is located in the dungeons, which are from the largest Assumption (Успенський) Cathedral and Peter and Paul Church.