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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but was delivered “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”