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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 perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm 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 offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”