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Against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”