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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”