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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”