Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Near the centre of Varoš rises the parish church of Klis, dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Over its centuries-long existence its form, appearance and even purpose have changed several times. Due to a lack of historical and archaeological sources, it is not possible to establish when the first church on this site was built, nor is it known whether an early Christian church stood here before it. As a pre-Romanesque church it certainly existed by the middle of the 9th century, at the time of the Croatian dukes Mislav and Trpimir, who built, restored and endowed other churches around their seat in Klis.
The church is first mentioned in 1333, when peace between Prince Nelipac and Prince Mladen III Šubić, then lord of Klis, was signed in it. In 1338 Mladen's sister Jelena married the Bosnian prince Vladislav Kotromanić in the church. From this marriage was born the future Bosnian king Stjepan Tvrtko I, later lord of Klis.
When the Ottomans conquered Klis, they turned the church of St. Mary in Varoš into a mosque. After their departure, in 1648, the mosque became a church again, was returned to Christian worship and was soon enlarged. At that time it was a smaller longitudinal building, with an apse facing east, a gable roof and a bell gable.
The apse, the triumphal arch and parts of the longitudinal walls of the former nave have survived from the old church. Enlarged with two narrow side aisles, the church acquired its final basilica form, expressed in its broad flat façade with simple Neo-Renaissance architectural forms. The external length of the church from the façade to the end of the apse is 32.30 m, and its greatest width is 17.80 m.
The painting of the interior was entrusted to the Solin painter Vjekoslav Parać. His frescoes are the church's greatest artistic treasure; they are painted on the wall above the triumphal arch and on the walls above the arches separating the nave from the side aisles. These three large frescoes form a single artistic whole – one fresco with a total length of 40 m along the north, south and east walls and a height of 6.10 m – which makes it, by surface area, the largest painting of its kind in Dalmatia. Parać's work in the church lasted, with interruptions, about fifteen months, from 1938 to 1939.