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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”