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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

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

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

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

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

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”