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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”