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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”