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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”