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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”