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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to make amends for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight 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 express our regret.”