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Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”