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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”