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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”