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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 harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them 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”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends 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 still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”