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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England apologised for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”