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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be 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, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”