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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute 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+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”