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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”