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

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. 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 “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment 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,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”