The church is located in a large complex of buildings which includes the house where Saint Bridget lived with her daughter, Saint Catherine, from 1350. When she died in 1373, the building was handed over to the Swedish monastery of Vadstena.
However, when Sweden embraced the Lutheran faith around 1500, the relationship with the monastery declined and the complex was occupied by Olaus Magnus, the Archbishop of Uppsala who was in exile.
The church and the complex changed hands many times, for example when Pope Sixtus V gave them to Sigismund III Vasa, the king of Poland and Catholic king of Sweden, and throughout the 20th century until 1931, when it passed to the Carmelite nuns of Mother Edwige Wielhorski, which then led to it becoming definitively assigned to the Bridgettine sisters thanks to Pope Pius XI.
All the different occupiers carried out various restorations and modernisation works, both to the church and to the rooms linked to the life of Saint Bridget.
The church today remains the national church of Sweden.
