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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

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

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” 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 wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”