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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I offer my apology now.”

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

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”