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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church 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 failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”