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Amid crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “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, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”