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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 caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”