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Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”