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Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”