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Set 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 it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”