The church is located in a large complex of buildings which includes the house where Saint Bridget of Sweden lived with her daughter, Saint Catherine, from 1350. When she died in 1373, the building was entrusted to the Swedish monastery of Vadstena.
However, when Sweden embraced the Lutheran faith around 1500, links to the monastery loosened and the complex was occupied by Olaus Magnus, the Archbishop of Uppsala who had fled to Rome in exile.
The church and the building complex have changed hands several times over the years. For example, in 1589 Pope Sixtus V gave them over to Sigismund III Vasa, the king of Poland and Catholic king of Sweden. From the start of the 20th century the complex was in the hands of the Carmelites under Mother Edwige Wielhorski until 1931, when it was definitively assigned to the Bridgettine sisters by Pope Pius XI.
Each of the occupants of the building 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 the Swedes.
