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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”