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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“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 take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could marry in church since 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”