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Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland 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 should only represent a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”