The presence of a chapel in this place is testified by a charter dated 1134 and signed by Godfrey I, Count of Louvain, in which he donated a chapel erected extra oppidum Bruxelli ("outside the fortified centre of Brussels") to the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of the Holy Sepulcher of Cambrai, who immediately founded a priory there.

Nothing remains of the original chapel, which was probably under the choir of the current church, whose construction began around 1210 with a Romanesque nave.

[2] The creation of this second parish indicates that, already at that time, a large population had settled along the old Roman road, which would become the Rue Haute/Hoogstraat, beyond the ramparts and the Steenpoort.

The southern part of the transept and the Chapel of the Holy Cross were built around 1215–1225 in a Romanesque-Gothic transitional style.

The choir (1250–1275), perhaps the finest achievement of 13th-century architecture in Brussels, reflects a transitional style of French influence.

The Chapel Church has had a turbulent history made up of successive phases of partial destruction, fire, looting, shelling and rebuilding, alterations and restorations, making it a milestone in the transition from the Romanesque style to the Gothic (and more particularly to the Brabantine Gothic).

[5] The interior is striking for the contrast between the low, dark transept and choir, and the wide, airy nave.

It contains sculptures by, among others, Jerôme Duquesnoy (II) and Lucas Faydherbe, as well as a pulpit by Pierre-Denis Plumier.

[6] Throughout its history, the church has hosted the burials of great families and illustrious people, among which, in 1569, that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, whose house is still on the Rue Haute.

Part of the relics of Saint Boniface of Brussels, Bishop of Lausanne, are also buried in the church.