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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast 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 its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”