Much of these renovations were carried out by the famous local builder František Benedikt Klíčník, while the interior received a Baroque-style treatment that remains mostly intact today, mostly from designs by the architect Mořic Grimm.

[5] More renovations took place about a century later, when between 1879 and 1891 a new Gothic-style presbytery, chapel of the Virgin Mary, and sacristy were constructed; at the same time, the current high altar, a Gothic work of Viennese furniture maker Josef Leimer depicting the Twelve Apostles and the crucifixion of Christ, was installed.

[6] The last major additions to the structure took place between 1901 and 1909, when the Viennese architect August Kirstein was brought in to design the twin Gothic towers that give the church its present monumental character.

Also added at the beginning of the century was the outer pulpit, the so-called "Kapistránka" to the left of the main entrance, named after the Franciscan Saint John of Capistrano, who preached in Brno at the second half of 1451.

[7] The oldest elements of the interior equipment include a boxed tabernacle in the Marian Chapel dating from 1652, later altered in 1783 by the sculptor Ondřej Schweigl, and the marble body of the baptistery from 1656 by Simon Brandt.

The reason for this, according to legend,[12] is that during the Thirty Years' War the invading Swedes had promised, when laying siege to Brno, that they would call off their attack if they had not succeeded in taking the city by midday on the 15th of August.

The battle underway, some shrewd citizens decided to ring the bells an hour early on this date, fooling the Swedes into breaking off the siege and leaving empty-handed.