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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

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

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret 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 have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”