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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

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

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as 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 beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”