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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 perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment 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 the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”