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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

The apology took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

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 since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”