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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”