Before the current cathedral, the parish church of Valvasone was the church, no longer existing since 1866, dedicated to Santa Maria delle Grazie and San Giovanni (Baptist or Evangelist). After the erection of the new temple, it was downgraded, becoming a co-parish church, and through various events (in 1485 it was entrusted to the Servite friars, replaced in 1665 by the Dominicans who remained there until 1770), it began a slow but inexorable decline, concluded with its definitive demolition in 1866. 

The origins of the church, built outside the "cortina" and also affected by the Turkish invasion of 1499, are certainly much earlier than 1330, the year in which its reconstruction was decided, because the existing building was already considered decrepit. 

In 1355, when Valvasone separated from the matrix of San Giorgio della Richinvelda and became an independent parish seat, the existence of a Confraternity of the Graces linked to the church was recognized, which had among its privileges the organization of processions to implore rain, displaying the Sacred Images; it also referenced a confraternity dedicated to the Santo Rosario. 

In 1668, three years after the arrival of the Dominican friars - who arrived in 1665 - work began on a new arrangement of the sacred building, which lasted about two decades, resulting in a church with seven altars. In one of them was placed, perhaps since the first half of the 14th century, the icon depicting the Madonna nursing (or Galactotrofusa), now in the cathedral, a precious painting from the first half of the 14th century, attributed to a workshop belonging to the so-called "Scuola Adriatica," always a subject of strong popular devotion. Of the convent complex annexed to the ancient church, part of the cloister of the Servites remains, which was located in front of it, in a building, now private (in the small square of via 4 Novembre) that shows a primitive 15th-century layout, evident especially in the front, with a loggia and a doorway of elegant Renaissance character, although heavily modified during the 19th century.