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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, 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, declared this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated 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 of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”