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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”