The parish church of the Holy Virgin Mary's Assumption was a cathedral until 1828. when the diocese of Rab was repealed. Recent discoveries of the parts of the architectonic decoration, the parts of a nearby baptistery along with the floor mosaics under the sanctuary indicate its early Christian origin from the 4th and the 5th centuries. The early Christian singularities, such as the polygonal outer rim of the apse and a few capitals in the colonnade, were preserved in the three-naval basilica.

It was further restored in the 9th century and decorated with new liturgical items of which a precious ciborium above the main altar was preserved. Three of its sides are decorated with typical Croatian wicker-work ornamentation with zoomorphic and floral iconographic motives. A further reconstruction took place in the 11th century in the so-called Proto-Romanesque style by annexing two side apses and carving new capitals with stylized acanthus leaves. A marble icon showing Christ the King also belongs to this period. Pope Alexander III consecrated the church facade, which was built in the middle of the 12th century. It followed the forms of the mature Romanesque style with Tuscan influences, evident in the architectonic and chromatic modelling by effective alternation of the lines of pink limestone breccias and white limestone. In 1490 the original Romanesque portal was replaced by the present one. A stone sculpture of the Holy Mary holding the dead Christ, the work of Petar Trogiranin. was placed in its lunette in 1514. The chapels of the families Zudenigo and Scaffa were added on the northern side in the 15th century. The latter one was later adapted into a baptistery whose baptismal font was made by Petar Trogiranin. At that time he also restored the above-mentioned ciborium. The wooden choir seats on the elevated presbytery on the lines of Venetian floral Gothic were probably made in 1445 by a wood carver Matija Moronzon and his collaborators.

In the second half of the 16th century the southern apse was reconstructed into a rectangular chapel of the Holy Cross and the altar with a monumental wooden coloured cross was placed there, a true masterpiece of the late Renaissance art.

In the second half of the 18th century the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament was built on the place of the western chapel. It follows the late-Baroque stylistic features with a marble altar of the tabernacle.

Paintings and sculptures of different historical periods are preserved in this church such as Our Lady with tho Child from the 14th century, a high wooden painted relief of St. Christophor (Sv. Kristofer). the expressive Piety and others. Precious liturgical items are conserved in the treasury along with reliquanes out of which we must mention the enamelled copper plates and the reliquary for the head of St. Christophor dating from the 12th century.

The cathedral bell-tower is the most beautiful building of its kind on our coast. It boasts of mature-Romanesquo stylistic features in its sculpture as well as in architecture. It makes a strong impression of harmony and measure by exceeding parallelepipeds, which are separated by richly decorated garlands and opened from tho bottom to the top with monophoras. biphoras. triphoras and finally a monumental quadnphora. The six-side slender pyramid was erected in the 15th century in the place of the original Romanesque square foundation alter it was thunder struck and damaged.