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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”