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Against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. 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 permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”