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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in 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” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”