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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”