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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”