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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment 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 wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”