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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders 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 during 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”