After the death of the Croatian King Zvonimir (+1089), and due to the now legendary Croatian discord, the Hungarian king Ladislaus I of Hungary established power in Slavonia by military force and, with the intention of limiting the political and ecclesiastical autonomy of Croatia, founded the diocese of Zagreb (which stretched from Senj to today's eastern borders of Croatia), which will move the focus of political activity from the south of Croatia to the north (until then, the entire Croatian kingdom of Dalmatia and Slavonia was in the single Archdiocese of Split).

In the Zlatna Bula (Golden Bull) and the gift book of King Andrija II (1217), this new Zagreb cathedral is also mentioned.

Those were the last years of the independent Croatian kingdom, and the Diocese of Zagreb was subordinate to Ostrogon until 1853, when it was raised to the rank of archbishopric.

In 1093 when King Ladislaus I of Hungary (1040-1095) moved the bishop's chair from Sisak to Zagreb, he proclaimed the existing church as a cathedral.

Due to the panic that prevailed one September night in 1469, when the Turks from Bosnia came to the Sava near Zagreb and gave up their attack on the city because the swollen Sava flooded the surroundings of Zagreb due to heavy rains, Bishop Osvald Thuz started building real defensive walls with towers around of the entire Kaptol settlement.

Cardinal Tomas Bakač Erdődy (+1521), the administrator of the diocese of Zagreb and the archbishop of Ostrogonia, built a fortress with ramparts and six round and one square tower around the cathedral itself.

Among these objects most notable are: The apsidal space of the sanctuary was decorated by Timotej with a series of 33 canonical seats placed in the stone recesses of the apse.

The white stone slab with three stylized crosses, whose shape resembles similar ones from the 11th and 12th centuries, is the original fragment of the altar of St. Mary the Queen from 1284.

After Timotej's death (+1287), construction continued only in 1344, when the Croatian ban and bishop Stjepan III Kanižaj (+1374) builds a new central and northern nave.

The construction of the southern, new, massive belfry-tower of the observatory with a dome was completed in 1644, and Bishop Vinković (+1642) changed the image of the entrance to the cathedral: he demolished the old Gothic portal and built a new one in the old Romanesque style.

Bishop Bogdan (+1647) signs a repair contract with the builder Alberthal, in which he demands, in the Baroque era, the repetition of the original Gothic forms in the renovation: "First of all, the bolt, column and chorus, or the gank, which were destroyed, are restored to the original zevzesma form, well, strongly and firmly to make from a good and strong stone..." The next two centuries, up to the earthquake in 1880, were mainly marked by constant rebuilding and repairs of the interior of the church.

In the 17th century, a single fortified renaissance watchtower was erected on the south side and was used as a military observation point, because of the Ottoman threat.

[13] At 7 hours, 33 minutes and 53 seconds, on November 9, 1880, a devastating earthquake (6.3 degrees on the Richter scale) occurred in Zagreb, with the epicenter in the area of Zagrebačka gora (Medvednica).

In the earthquake, the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (co-patron is St. Stephen the King), where at that time canon Franjo Rački (+1894) celebrated mass on the side altar, was also badly damaged.

[15] After the earthquake, the cathedral was renovated (1880 – 1902) in the neo-Gothic style under the leadership of the architect Hermann Bollé and under the patronage of Izidor Kršnjavi.

The roof made of glazed tiles (such as the St. Mark's Church in Gornji grad) is missing, the so-called "Zagreb cathedral flag", which was replaced by a copper sheet in 1961 due to wear and tear.

In Italy, Hermann Bollé met Izidor Kršnjav and Đakovo bishop Strossmayer, who in 1874 launched a public campaign for the restoration of the cathedral.

gargouille - throat), stone figures of dragons, frogs, bats and other monstrous zoomorphic forms that belch water from their mouths and protect the church from evil demonic forces.

The sculpture of "the Virgin with the Child Jesus and angels" is the work of the Viennese sculptor Josef Beyer, and was carved in Zagreb in 1890.

The statues were made by the sculptor Karlo Morak, a teacher at the Zagreb Craft School, where trained craftsmen are needed for the restoration of the cathedral.

He noted: From the 13th century, pictures or reliefs made up of several parts began to be placed above the stone slab of the altar, from which in the 14th century the so-called a Gothic winged altar, with several layers of folding panels (triptych, polyptych), painted on one side and the other, and all of this was framed by a richly carved frame.

In the southern nave, to the right of the entrance, on the wall of the belfry, there is an inscription in angular Glagolitic script that reminds us of the first connections of Croats with Christianity and Pope John IV (640-642 AD).

He was buried in the cathedral in front of the altar of the Mother of God; dr. Eugen Kvaternik, Vjekoslav Bach, Ante Rakijaš - having started an uprising against foreign rule, they were betrayed and killed in an ambush near Rakovica on October 11, 1871.

Their bones have been resting in a tomb behind the main altar since 1921; In memory of the Croatian people's representatives Stjepan Radić, Pavlo Radić and Đuri Basariček who were killed in the Belgrade National Assembly on June 20, 1928; To all Croatian victims of the First and Second World War who gave their lives for their homeland, and their bones lie all over the homeland and beyond.

"Today I am here, in Croatian land, as a bare-handed pilgrim of the Gospel of Christ, which is a message of love, harmony and peace" said Pope John Paul II, who in the 1990s was one of the key figures for Croatia's international recognition.

[23] The cathedral was also visited by Pope Benedict XVI on 5 June 2011 where he celebrated Sunday Vespers and prayed before the tomb of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac.

At approximately 6:24 AM CET on the morning of 22 March 2020, an earthquake of magnitude 5.3 MW, 5.5 ML, hit Zagreb, Croatia, with an epicenter 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) north of the city centre.

The bell tower blocks that were damaged and were removed can be seen lined up in front of the cathedral, each marked with its own bar code.