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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, Norway's church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex 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 was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”