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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the disease as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”