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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”