After the Ottomans occupied the city in 1543, coronations of the Hungarian monarch moved elsewhere; the building was extensively damaged in a fire in 1601.

The Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in the late 1010s by Saint Stephen I, the first King of Hungary.

The basilica was the most significant place of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages, as it contained the crown jewels, including the throne, the Holy Crown of Hungary, the treasury and the archives.

The royal graves were ransacked and the basilica was used to store gunpowder, while St. Martin's Cathedral in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) became the new coronation site.

Its ruins were demolished and used for the construction of the new episcopal residence and for the reconstruction of another old church which in the 18th century became the cathedral of the Diocese of Szekesfehervar, erected in 1777.