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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”