In the place where the church was built, before 1917 there were some old walls that Catholic believers held for the ruins of a church dedicated to the Lady of Good Counsel, while Muslim believers held them for the ruins of a Bektashi tekke. Farlat claims that there was a dervish tekke in that area in the eighteenth century. After the walls became a pretext for contention, the Ottoman administration was forced to block the walls for an indefinite period. In time, a committee was appointed by both parties to look into the matter, of which only members are known: Yusuf Efendi Golemi and Shani Dedjakup. Following the commission’s decision, Catholic believers were allowed to go on their own prayers as well as pilgrimage. The same right was also given to Muslims who believed in it. During World War I, when the city was under Austro-Hungarian occupation, the Catholic clergy with the support of the Austrian administration began building the church in 1917. Protests by some Muslim individuals before the Vienna War Ministry against this arbitrary decision to built the church on the ruins of the disputed walls, were ignored. The church began its construction dedicated to the Lady of the Good Council and was completed in 1930. In 1922 the archbishop of Shkodra, Jak Serreqi, was buried there on the merit that he had laid the first building stone on March 25, 1917. In 1946, after the Communists seized power, over two thousand people took a pilgrimage to the church. Not long afterwards, it was transformed into a ballroom, to collapse completely further during the Cultural Revolution. With its rebuilding after the fall of communism, in 1993 Pope John Paul II blessed the cornerstone of the new sanctuary. The reconstruction of the sanctuary had the charity of Zadar’s Archbishop, Bishop Simeone Duca.
