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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”