[1][2][3] The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1181, when the peasant chief Jon Kutiza attacked King Sverre in Bergen.

According to Sverris saga, some of Sverre's men then fled into the church (then known as Olavskirken because it was dedicated to Saint Olaf).

Despite being declared the cathedral of the post-Reformation Protestant diocese, the church was not fully rebuilt after the fire in 1463.

As part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the 1665 Battle of Vågen took place in the main port area of Bergen.

A cannonball from the sea battle between the English and Dutch fleets remains embedded in the cathedral's exterior wall.

[9][11] During the renovation in the 1880s, under the direction of architects Christian Christie and Peter Andreas Blix, the Rococo interiors were restored to their former medieval appearance.