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Set against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”