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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and same-sex couples could have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”