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Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”