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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”