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Amid 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 caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”