The history of the Christkindl church starts with a local town legend, which has been passed on by the residents of the Austrian city of Steyr by word of mouth from generation to generation. According to this legend, a regent of a watchtower Ferdinand Sertl moved to these lands from Melk in 1691. He suffered from a severe form of epilepsy and nothing could heal him. Every day he prayed to an image of the Saint family, which he hung on one of the firs that surrounded his home. Once, he heard a story about a lame nun Maria Elisabetha Parangin, who in 1648 prayed to a wax figure of a baby for healing. Soon she left these places with her legs healthy. The man found that tree and a small wax figure in its hollow. Later one of the farmers built there a wooden chapel as a gesture of gratitude for the recovery of his son. Very soon, the chapel became a place of pilgrimage of believers from all over the vicinity, and in 1702 a temple, which we can see today, was built in this place.

The modern church building was designed in the Barocco style, according to the plan of an Italian master Carlo Antonio Carlone. However, the construction works were stopped until 1708, when the long-awaited permission of the bishop was granted. By that time, the Italian man Carlo Antonio Carlone had left this world, and the building was continued by a famous Austrian master Jakob Prandtauer. A year later, the Garstner abbot consecrated the new church that got the name Christkindl, in honor of the wax figure of baby Christ.

Today this figure is still in the church. A standing baby, whose height is just 10 cm, holds a cross and a crown of thorns. It stands in the halo of a gilded tabernacle, which was made in 1760 and is part of the altar composition. The spruce trunk in which the figure was found is also part of the altar, and the Christkindl church is still one of the most popular centers for Christian pilgrimage.