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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”