"Frederick, by the grace of God Bishop of Bressanone, greets all the faithful in Him who is the salvation of all!" Thus begins a letter of indulgence dated in 1391 for the original parish of Axams and its daughter churches, including that of Reith, the first documentary mention of our church. The church of Reith, however, is certainly much older, even if not in its present form. For as early as 1157, the Bavarian monasteries of Wessobrunn and Benediktbeuren began to clear the, as the documents state, "impassable wasteland of the Scharnitz valley" between Leithen and Seefeld, i.e. on the site of today's village of Reith, which had been given to them by the Bavarian Counts of Andechs. It can be assumed that the monks also gave their new settlement, which was threatened by many dangers in the middle of the Scharnitz forest, an ecclesiastical center in the form of a chapel built of wood.

They consecrated it to St. Nicholas. For a long time, Reith was still under the jurisdiction of the original parish of Axams, from where the pastoral care was also exercised. In 1751 Reith was elevated to an independent parish. It received its own pastor.