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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”