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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects 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 in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”