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Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”