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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”