The church was built by Serbian Queen Helen of Anjou in 1290, dedicated to Saints Sergius and Bacchus, allegedly on top of a pre-6th century basilica according to circumstantial evidence.

[1] Marino Bizzi, the Archbishop of Antivari at the time, wrote in a 1611 report to the Vatican that heavy damages were inflicted to the church as a result of the Ottoman presence in Albania.

[2] In 1790 archbishop Frang Borci informed Coletti, Farlati's assistant, who was about to republish Illyricum sacrum, that the church was the most beautiful of Albania.

[2] Ippen, then Austrian consul of Iskodra, observed that in the late 1800s and early 1900s the gravediggers of Shirgj would find old mosaics.

[5] It is surmised that the church was founded in Justinian times, around 535, with the spread and especially with the imperial patronage of the cult of its patron saints, two Roman Christian soldiers martyred in Syria in the 4th century.

[...] According to the testimony of the Chronicle of Bar, although a source considered unreliable, this basilica became the royal mausoleum of the 11th century Serbian Vojislavljević dynasty who ruled over Zeta and thus the burial place of kings Mihajlo and Bodin and their heirs, Vladimir and Gradihna.