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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”