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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, 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 serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

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

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”